


You've Got Me Locked Up

by not_selfconfrontation



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Police, Angst with a Happy Ending, Criminal Keith (Voltron), Delinquent Keith, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Falling In Love, Fluff, Happy Ending, Humor, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Lonely Lance (Voltron), M/M, Receptionist Lance, klance, more like lance decides that they're enemies and that's that, some good ol fashion breaking and entering, temporary roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:29:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24065098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_selfconfrontation/pseuds/not_selfconfrontation
Summary: Lance is a receptionist at his local police station, just trying to get through the summer and figure out his life post-college. It's a little hard though, when he has to deal with the admittedly handsome delinquent that keeps getting arrested all the time. Even harder when it turns out the guy needs a place to live for a little bit. Or maybe, actually, it's just the thing he needed.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 69
Kudos: 477





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i've had this story bumping around in my head for a while, hope you enjoy!

Boredom is a skill.

Or actually, Lance thinks, alleviating boredom is. He gets enough practice. It’s Friday evening and just beyond the window, across the river, is the city. Alive with lights. With people.

But here he is at the station, slumped over at the reception desk, waiting for Coran to locate the case files that he needs Lance to organize. Melted to his cushy leather chair. The vent above him has something lodged in it, whistling in a strange rhythm, and it's the most energy the station has seen all night.

So, the first step of not being bored? He sits up, suddenly alive. Trashy internet quizzes. A sure-fire, Lance McClain guaranteed time-killer, right? Yeah, no, scratch that. After thirty minutes with all that teenage brightness, the impulsive interest drains away.

“Well,” he mutters. “At least I know I’m a summer.”

Okay, what else?

As if offended, the ten open tabs of grad school programs seem to glow brighter, left undone and unexplored.

The second step is to thump his head back against the leather and let his eyes roam, snagging across stray shapes and lines. When the hills and valleys of the popcorn ceiling lose its novelty too, and the fluorescent panels get too bright to ignore, he spins his chair around to the rest of the department.

The bullpen is abandoned. Not that he expected otherwise, this late. Only Allura remains. He can only see the silhouette blurring through her office door but she’s probably working herself into a fervor over some forgotten detail. Maybe the newest Kogane report. Coran is still searching the basement. It’d be easy enough to ditch. Claim a sudden case of bird flu and head into the night, but he can’t leave Coran hanging like that.

The monitor blinks to darkness in the corner of his eye and he taps a key to wake it. The blinding pink font of another quiz pops up; _What do you look for in a man?_

Ha! It’s very middle school. Silly. Like he’s a giggly twelve-year-old, sneaking magazines under his covers. But that doesn’t stop him. And in vacuous boredom like this, the fantasies always catch him easily. Late night pillow talks and cozy home dinners are a favorite, especially when his new apartment feels particularly hollow. The hand holding, the secrets heating the air between him and some mysterious stranger.

Sometimes it’s even sillier. A girl who's lost in the city and Lance, just around the corner with perfect directions. Or a guy who reaches for the last cereal box on the shelf at the same moment as him, and then insists that they share. Small stuff, absolutely disconnected from reality, but it gives him little thrills all the same.

A heavy breath puffs through his mouth as he leans back over the desk. He doesn’t know. Maybe it doesn’t really matter. Or maybe someone—

The tiny _ding_ of the entrance alert is all the warning he gets before he’s greeted with Keith Kogane, marched in by Officer Acxa. He’s uncuffed, hands stuffed in his pocket, so it must not have been that bad. Lance won’t have time to go down and ask him tonight.

“At this point, detaining you is a waste of tax dollars,” She’s spitting her words, likely irate at how getting Keith has become most of her job. He lets a bit of sympathy rise for Keith, just a little, until they begin to walk by the desk. His desk, shit.

Lance pretends to busy himself, fluttering around papers and checking back to his oh-so-important screen. Just so he can keep at least a _sliver_ of professionalism. Acxa wasn’t exactly a snitch, but still.

“I don’t get it, do you enjoy the holding cells or—”

It must’ve taken only a few moments for them to walk past, but it stretches like molasses. He clenches his teeth. Jesus, at this point, Keith could walk himself down to the holding cells. He’s been here enough times.

Lance dares a peek, just to see if it’s safe, only for his heart to jump when he sees Keith looking straight at him. His face is almost forcedly neutral.

For a second Lance waits, but when nothing happens, he quirks an eyebrow. _Can I help you or what dude?_

And then Keith, otherwise still blank-faced, sticks his tongue out at him.

Time stutters, like one big universal record scratch. Lance is rendered stupid. Then the world speeds back up, and he startles like a cat, fully abandoning the pretense.

“Oh wow, you got me dude.” He drills a glare into that dumb face, which is now chuckling at him. “Is that the best you can do?”

Keith gives nothing else, seemingly satisfied. Acxa picks up the pace, pressing an insistent hand on Keith’s back, and they both disappear around the corner.

It’s the middle schooler in him that makes Lance turn after them, blowing a wholehearted raspberry to Keith’s back, before thumping back in his chair. He imagines Keith sitting down there in his usual cell, doing who knows what. Probably rotting. Hopefully. The abandoned quiz still glows, waiting for him.

_What do you look for in a man?_

Lance rolls his eyes, closes the tab, and waits in pouty silence for Coran to come back upstairs.

❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

A week later, on Friday morning, Lance blinks his eyes open and immediately shuts them. His mouth tastes like yarn. The consequences of sleeping late. Eventually, the crusties around his eyes become intolerable and he has to blink around them, waking up for real.

On the ceiling, his star stickers stare back at him, muted by morning light. _Get out of bed, you loser,_ they say.

Not one to mess with the stars, he rolls out of his bed. Kicks through piles of laundry to the bathroom. Once his mouth tastes like bittersweet, and he’s dressed like a person, he wanders out into the rest of the apartment.

The place is softened with gray light, pouring over the splintering furniture. Flurries of dust buzz slowly through the slants of sunlight. He should vacuum in here. Y’know, eventually.

_“At least take the feather duster,” Veronica had scoffed at him, the day before he moved out._

_“Ronnie, please.” He had flicked his hand dismissively. “Who even dusts anymore?”_

At least he can deny her the satisfaction.

He pops open the fridge, pulsing fluorescence over all the tupperware, which were empty, save for a few scoops of ropa vieja. The last of the apocalyptic stockpile his mom had left him. She wouldn't have it any other way.

_You used to eat enough for three grown men, sweetie._

The gratitude almost brings him to tears, especially without Hunk to fill the fridge. Lance had moved into this one bedroom pretty much right after Hunk had moved out to Balmera Heights with Shay. The old apartment was too empty.

If he lets himself dwell, in the dust and the light, this place feels the same. It pulses like the fridge, vibrating with silence.

His stomach turns at the thought of shredded beef and sauce so early in the morning. So, he finds himself perched on the counter, looking down into a bowl of cereal. Sad little wheat circles bump around like they’re lost.

Despite his best efforts, _it_ catches his eye. Dusty pages and cutting blank lines. Maybe it’s the morning grog, or—no, _yeah_ , that brooding mass of brochures, flyers, forms and everything else he’s gathered from graduate open houses is literally mean-mugging him from its spot on the breakfast island, where it's been for weeks.

Lance averts his gaze, gut stirring. He might as well have eaten the ropa vieja. His phone chirps.

_Captain Allura: hey Lance, when you get in today, could you review all the information for the new Kogane incident, from last week?_

Of course he could. At this point, Lance is practically the guy’s emergency contact, with all the info he’s had to collect on him. He slurps down the rest of his sad little circles, avoids eye contact with the pile, and gets ready for the day.

❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀ 

_Hair:_ Black, a mullet he can’t seem to be bothered with. Whoever told him mullets were working needs to apologize.

 _Build and height:_ Medium. Kinda muscular from what he’s seen through the poorly lit holding cell. Probably a gym rat. Bleh.

 _Speech:_ Deep. Moody, like he’s in a band.

 _Eyebrows:_ Thick. Annoyingly thick.

 _Scars/tattoos_ : Only one that he knows of, although it’s faded since that first day. In the privacy of his mind, Lance can admit it looks cool. And, if he’s being generous, it's handsome. Or whatever. Not that it matters.

When he’s done filling in the rest of the report form, sans commentary, he scrolls through the rest of the folder, out of nothing else to do. Despite being so close to the city, this town doesn’t get a lot of traffic. Nestled in a corner of suburbia. Certainly not enough crime. Kogane incidents take up most of this summer’s folders: trespassing, public disturbance or whatever low-level misdemeanors.

The first time Keith Kogane had been dragged in here, just three months ago, Lance was the one to file his report. The beginning of a trend.

When Allura had first handed him the clipboard, he had leapt for it, glad for something to even moderately important. Not that he could complain, exactly, just that his sparkly-eyed college vision of a gap year working in criminal justice hadn’t involved sitting at his desk, listening to Coran’s stories about his days on the beat. After the first month, it had been a welcome change of pace.

The sub-basement holding cells were lined along a hallway of concrete and rusted iron. It was freezing. Waiting for him at the end was a suspect for trespassing. Cell 17. Non-violent. No biggie, right?

The overhead lights in the cells were a little weak, swaying slightly on their chains. It casted strange shadows over the guy hunkered down on the cell’s bench. Hunched over, fingers scrunched through that mane but otherwise not really moving. His left side was blurry in the half-shadow. When Lance peeked a little closer past the bars, like a kid at the zoo, the guy had a tattered-up hoodie and dirty shoes. Probably in need of a shower. That’s it. Not really a hardened criminal.

Even if this guy was Al Capone, that wasn’t gonna stop him. Puffing his chest, grasping his clipboard, he drank from that good ol’ well of McClain charm.

No biggie.

“Hey, jailbird.” Lance smiled, all pearly whites, and gave the bars a little knock-knock, steel ringing through the air. The guy startled and looked up. Silence.

“Uh, how’s it goin’?” He fidgeted on his feet. The guy’s eyes were startlingly dark, piercing like glass in the half-shadow. It disrupted his rhythm, but only for a second.

“I’m here just to get your information.” Nothing.

“Just, for, uh,” Lance flapped his hands around, “for the system’s sake, ya’know?” A whole more ‘lotta nothing. The guy just kept looking, and Lance held back the instinct to squirm like he’s on the dissection table.

Instead, he gives a low whistle. “Alright then. Let’s get crackin’.” An uphill battle, for sure, but—no biggie.

He let himself slide down the cold wall a few feet back, shuffled around to get as comfortable as he could with his ass on hard concrete and clicked his pen.

“So, I see a couple things got filled out already; Keith Kogane, age 23, local resident, all that good stuff.”

_Tap, tap, tap._

When Lance peaked back up, the guy, Keith, was drumming his hands against his thighs, no cares in the world. The air got colder, staler, settling weirdly on Lance’s skin. His jaw tightened.

“Can you confirm that information is correct for me?”

“Your fly is down.”

Lance’s eyes rocketed to his pants, where he could confirm, no, his zipper was perfectly fucking fine, and flicked back to see Keith stepped forward, leaning against the corner where the bars met the wall. The shadow switched sides. The gauze bandaged over his cheek and jaw looked painful, but it didn’t stop that dumb little smirk on his face.

“ _Oh_ , ha ha, you think that’s cute?” Irritation warmed his face. Keith just shrugged. Whatever. _Whatever_. Maybe that had gotten it out of his system. Lance would get through this. Not that he has any other choice.

“Any medical issues we should know about?” Nothing.

“Any aliases?” Another little shrug. The tapping starts up again.

Lance rolled through the questions, line by line but after that little joke, Keith had stonewalled him. Sent him a flat stare, or just kept drumming against his thighs. A one-sided conversation and with every unanswered beat, Lance fidgeted a little more, irritation glitching through him. Started wishing for the desk again.

“ _Okay,_ last page, not that you care.” Keith mumbled offhand, but Lance guessed it was probably something rude. The hot agitation almost choked him.

“Any family or next of kin in the area that we can contact for you tonight?” he bites out.

Finally, Keith stilled. It was ferociously pleasing to see him chewing on his lip. Maybe he’d have something to turn into Allura after all.

“My brother. He’s, uh,” Keith lets a sigh puff out. “Lieutenant Takashi Shirogane.”

Wait. Rewind.

“From the fire department?” The heat gives way to the sheer spark of nosiness.

The man who, in the short 3 months since his transfer, had saved three homes and the old elementary school on Milford Street. The buzz about his promotion even reached the break room here. Lance caught his picture in the news and quietly dubbed him Dorito Chest.

“Yup,” Keith looked sideways. “That’s the one.”

“Allura’s gonna freakin’ love this,” Lance muttered. “Okay, well, if we can’t get him, do you have any other family in the area?”

It was like a switch, how quickly Keith’s face became immovable, how his arms tightened across his chest.

Lance tried again. “Any parents?”

If Lance had poked him, his finger would have frozen and shattered, glittering to the floor. Even in half shadow, Keith’s stare went right through him, but Lance didn’t come down here just to leave without answers. Even a simple no would do.

After an eternity, Keith huffed sharply through his nose and began turning back to the bench.

Nope.

“Okay, nuh-uh. Not this time, man.” Lance let the clipboard clatter on the floor and marched right up to the bars. Keith fell back, the surprise on his face making Lance a little bolder.

“I don’t know what the hell your problem is, but you’re gonna answer the questions,” he went, full Karen. “I’m gonna write ‘em down, and you’re gonna be at least a _little_ bit nice about it! Alright?”

“Or what?”

“ _Or what?_ ”

“Yeah,” Keith stared him down, gunmetal eyes. “What are you gonna do? Arrest me?”

“Yeah,” he heard the slight shrill in his own voice, “Maybe I will!” Forgetting for that moment that Lance, despite his criminal justice degree, was nowhere near a cop.

“I’ll arrest you as many times as it takes ‘till you cooperate, so you just better get comfortable!”

Keith’s answer was to flip around, hair swishing behind him.

Lance, quite honestly, would rather die than be out-pettied. “Your hair is stupid.”

That vicious pleasure came flooding back when Keith quickly made a 180. “Your shoes are stupid.”

“Oh, thank you for the fashion advice. Did those giant holes come with the hoodie or did you get in a fight with a cheese grater?”

Keith looked down at himself, and then looked to the side and pursed his lips. “Got ripped up climbing a fence.”

“My apologies to the fence.”

Lance knew that his irritation was too deep and considered pulling back to a safe professionalism. Starting shit with detainees wasn’t entirely Allura-approved. But then something short and gruff bubbled its way out of Keith. Laughter. Rough and grumbly, but it gave him pause.

“Now,” Lance went back for the clipboard, seeing his opportunity. “Would you like to tell me just what you were doing climbing a fence?” And hopefully fill in all the other blanks while they were at it?

Keith sighed, nodded, stepping fully into the light. Lance clicked his pen, a smile blooming from satisfaction. No biggie.

There’s absolutely no need to admit how the light had carved Keith's face into something unimaginably striking, even all bandaged up. But he can say that in the hour he spent in that freezing little corner of the universe, there hadn’t been any papers, or old case reports, or ceiling divots to count. There hadn’t been anything else on his mind.

❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

The day bleeds into late evening. Lance is still at his desk, convinced that people can get cramps from scrolling too long, when Keith gets yanked in again, hands cuffed in front of him.

“You mind slowing down a bit, Kogane?” he says, pulling out his bag from under the desk. There should be a couple snacks in here. “I just finished a report for you this morning.”

He obliges Lance with a chuckle, even while being strong-armed to the cells by Acxa. There are a few bruises and harsh looking scuffs on that dumb face of his, but he still looks good. The audacity.

Acxa rolls her eyes and the two of them disappear around the corner.

At this point, he’s not getting much more work done anyways. It’s as good an excuse as any. When he rummages through his bag, he finds some remains from his lunch. A bag of barbecue chips and a little packet of gummies.

He gives it a few minutes before stashing his goodies in his hoodie pocket and stealing away to the sub-basement. Doesn’t bother picking up a new case form. Allows himself to glide along to Cell 17, where Keith leans against the corner of the wall and the bars. Like he’d been waiting.

“Aren’t you getting tired of looking at these bars?” Lance says, sitting on the floor opposite him.

“I don’t know,” Keith says, surveying the dull concrete walls and the sharp metal benches. “It’s getting pretty homey in here.” 

“Maybe I’ll hang up some pictures for you. Get you a little welcome mat.” Lance chuckles because it actually sounds cozy. Snuggly, even. “My cell is your cell.”

“Oh, that’d be nice.” He gives a tug at the metal chains around his wrist, which glint under the fluorescence. “I don’t think I’m going anywhere else tonight anyways.”

Lance takes out his snacks and holds each option for Keith to choose. He points to Lance’s left and manages to catch the little packet of gummies thrown at him through the bars, an awkward twist to his wrists.

“Nice.” Lance rips his chips open. “For a delinquent,” he jibes.

“Thanks.” Keith picks out a little cherry, paying his gibe little mind. “And thanks for these, too,” he adds, a little awkward.

“Well, someone’s gotta feed the prisoners.” Keith rolls his eyes and Lance takes smug delight in it.

They munch in silence. Even in the sub-basement, the walls are thin. The mute pitter-patter of rain cushions them, insulates this little section of the station. Almost like privacy. Lance isn’t sure when exactly he started coming down for....whatever this was. Somewhere in the two months since that first time Keith had been arrested, for trespassing onto Zarkon’s Pet Rescue.

The other officers lost their patience when they tried to interview Keith (Acxa got so red he thought she stopped breathing), so he’s become Lance’s biweekly problem. The guy couldn’t stop getting himself into trouble. And needed a haircut. And was kinda crabby, sometimes. But it was a little better down here, munching on snacks with him, than watching people pass in and out all day. Or in the vibrating silence of his apartment.

“No clipboard?” Keith asks.

“Dude, you’re such a hooligan, I know most of your info by heart.” Keith gives him a flat, put-upon stare, tosses a little orange shape into his mouth.

“I think that clipboard is your job.”

“I think _you,_ ” Lance points at him, “should mind your business.”

Keith scrunches his nose, looking at Lance’s finger like it’s a cop.

“Slacker.”

Lance scrunches his nose. “Alright, if you’re so eager to spill the tea.” He crunches down on a chip. It shatters nicely on his teeth. “Tell me what nonsense you subjected the town to this time.”

A pause settles. The rain patters on.

“Landlord and I weren’t really on the same page about, um,” Keith’s gaze flicks to the side, “living amenities.”

“Like?”

“Pets.”

Lance gives a low whistle. “Enough to rough you up like that? Guy must have some serious pet allergies.”

“This wasn’t the first argument.” Keith shrugs, still looking off at a distant wall. “And technically I started it.” He takes a breath, as if to say more, and Lance finds himself leaning forward. That surprises him, like his body should know better. But Keith drops his breath, the story apparently more trouble than it’s worth. Like he can’t put down the weight of it yet.

Lance hesitates, racks his mind for words, then settles back. The rain sounds like it's launched into a storm, soft stamping all around them. It fills the space up for both of them. He doesn’t really know the guy enough to tell him _maybe think things through a little bit_ or _why the fuck do you end up here, like, every two weeks_. He reaches for another chip, just for something to do with his hands, but he only finds greasy foil.

Eventually, slowly, he goes, “Well, at least you’ll be alright in here, for the night?”

“Think again,” Acxa says, out of absolutely fucking nowhere. Lance is grateful to have only let out a tiny little gasp. She leans against the wall a little ways back, looking over the two of them like she’d rather cram them both behind bars

“Lieutenant Shirogane called from his conference. Allura’s taken mercy on you.”

“What a surprise,” Lance whispers. Keith shoots him a glare, but it’s dulled from relief. Lance isn’t quite sure how many favors the fire lieutenant can keep pulling at this point, given how often he’s begged Allura to let Keith out for his misdemeanors. The guy must be running out soon.

Acxa says something about a dog, but he doesn’t really hear it. With her arrival, the bubble has burst. The cold of the sub-basement comes flooding back in. And his ass starts screaming from the hard concrete. He lifts himself from the ground, gives a little wave to Keith and strolls back upstairs.

❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

“Oh, Lance, you’re still here?” Allura peeks her head out of the office just as Lance passes by. The late hour reveals a rarely casual Allura, just down to a neat button-up and a pair of sneakers Lance knows she keeps under her desk, when no one is around to see. No one but Lance and Coran.

“Ha, yeah, y’know. Keeping the prisoners happy.”

“You mean, Keith?” The lilt of her accent is soothing, even when weighted with exasperation.

“Yuuuup,” Lance drawls. Allura rolls her eyes and leaves it at that. She steps from the doorway to join Lance in the hall.

“How about you Captain?” He stuffs his hands in his pockets. Hopes his smile looks casual. “Why aren’t you out tearing up the town?”

He knows the answer already. Working her smoothly manicured fingers to ribbons, arguing with state officials into the night. Whatever she needs to do to keep the town safe. At 26, she’s the youngest captain in state history, and has no plan on slowing down. His uber-crush on her, which he can admit now was unrealistic, has faded to simple admiration. The way she leaves smiles and pride in her wake gives his job more potential. More promise. Like some of her Allura-ness could rub off on him.

It's hard, he admits, to stare into the gleam of her plaques and badges and not feel dull. Just a little. He tells himself it doesn’t really matter, that feeling lost just comes with the territory of being in your twenties, maybe, but Allura seemed to be immune to that.

“There’s always something that needs doing,” she sighs, then returns his smile. “How about you, Lance? Are you gonna get up to anything?”

“Ha, no, not really.” Lance goes. His smile stiffens. He really isn’t doing anything at all.

When he steps outside under the police awning, he sees that he was right. The sky is pouring, scrubbing the streets clean. Petrichor bathes the air. Earthy. Clean. He takes slow, deep breaths, savoring it. His heart falls to a drowsy tempo, lost to the drizzling beat.

Maybe it's the rain making him soft, or insane, but when he spies Keith, something stops him in his tracks and makes him stare. Like iron to a magnet. Keith’s a few feet away, looking out over the railing, talking on his cell. Half-bathed in the light from inside.

“Yeah, no charges, but the landlord wants me out by tonight,” he sighs, shoulder blades going limp. He has a nice back. Not that it matters. “I know, Shiro, I know. Thank you.” He pauses, then mutters, “I’m sorry.”

Even in August humidity, Keith’s stupid hair falls in deep waves, skimming the bottom of his neck.

“No,” he jolts, “Don’t leave the conference. I can figure out a place for tonight, don’t worry.” He nods, self-convinced. “Yeah, I’ll find a motel or something.”

Instantly, Lance knows that’s a lost cause. It’s almost midnight. Even if he could get to the closest motel, all the way out by the highway, check-in wasn't 24 hours.

Another option pops up in his thoughts, but he squishes it. Or tries to. It worms though his better sense, insistence, and before he can stop it, his thoughts run away with the excuses, how his place _was_ empty, and it’s not like he had anything else to do tonight and it was just really coming down— _no._

Nope, no-no, uh-uh. _No._

Keith keeps chatting away, runs a hand through his hair. It’s embarrassing how Lance has to fight to stop staring, even more embarrassing that he loses. Keith could be a murderer. Probably. Lance didn’t know. He didn’t know anything about him, not really. Besides his emergency contact info. Which will be great to use from his coffin, to let Shiro know his brother was a murderer. And he didn’t seem like the best tenant. Even if he makes the day fun. Sometimes. In a _you’re a pain in my ass but you’re the only interesting thing about my job_ kind of way.

“Um, hey?”

Keith’s voice cuts like a bell through the rain. He’s finished with his call, looking at Lance like he’s a maniac. Lance _is_ a maniac. That’s the only way to explain why he can’t tear his eyes away. The half-light turns Keith into something divine, something devastating. An oil painting made flesh. Heat runs down his arms like water through the streets. His heart is hot and velvety in his throat.

He wasn't going to. He wouldn't. Definitely, absolutely, would _not—_

❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

“Ta-da.” Lance opens the door to his apartment with a lack-luster flourish, and Keith peeks in behind him.

He holds it open as Keith walks in, gripping his duffel bags like a lifeline.

“Thank you,” Keith says. Lance’s fingers start to cramp, and he forces himself to relax his grip around the wood. They’re both a little wet from the rain, but it had been alright in the evening heat. Now the droplets are frigid, and his muscles are strung marionette tight.

“So, yeah, here we are. My cell is your cell.” Lance forces a laugh. Keith is just standing there, ramrod straight. The door clicks shut behind them, deafening in the quiet, and it hits Lance that he’s really doing this.

Keith is glancing around, and Lance starts to sweat through the freeze. What must he be seeing? From another’s perspective, the living room isn’t really a living room. Just a tiny love seat that faces the southern window and the stand he puts his laptop on. A forgotten cup of tea from two or three days ago that he didn’t care about suddenly feels like a red flag. The dust that didn’t seem important this morning is now sticking to his skin, clouding the whole apartment. Why didn't he take the fucking feather duster? Or steal Hunk’s vacuum before they split ways? Something hot curdles in his gut.

It’s not like he knew to prepare for this! But knowing that doesn’t stop him from waiting for Keith to scrunch up in disgust, to step out into the hallway and make other arrangements that don’t smell like broke.

Instead Keith smiles, crinkling his eyes. “Nice place.”

Lance snorts, disbelieving, but something inside him starts to settle anyway.

“Here, I’ll take that.” Lance reaches for Keith’s duffel bags, because his mother raised him with manners. He’d have to ask her later if hooligans could be excluded from etiquette, but he assumed the answer was no.

“Thank you,” Keith repeats, ears going red. It’s still raining, although it’s calmed to a few droplets against the window.

“Do you, uh, want anything to eat? Fair warning, my kitchen is basically a desert.” Lance blinks. “Unless you’re a cereal at night person.”

“That's alright.” Keith rushes to assure him. Without his duffel, he stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I wouldn’t say no to a shower though.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s right...” Lance flaps his hands vaguely towards the bathroom. “I’ll just show you.”

They pass the kitchen on the way, and again Lance cringes. The pile of grad school nonsense gloats. _Shoulda dealt with us in the morning, dude!_ The dishes are so high they could scrape the faucet. It floods him with cold relief that Keith declined dinner. That sharply embarrassing moment will have to wait until morning.

After Keith takes out what he needs, Lance brings the duffel bags back to his bedroom. Apparently, he didn’t have much stuff. Lance had watched from the car as Keith walked into his apartment building, only to run back out ten minutes later with his bags and a bandaged-up middle aged man yelling after him.

“He’s probably gonna toss your shit to the curb, man.” he had said, worried, but Keith assured him the biggest thing he had was a cheap, sad little couch.

It makes him feel a little sturdier in his decision, to remember that Keith needs this. Good deeds and all that.

Lance stows the bags off just next to his nightstand and turns to the rest of his room. Jesus. The floor looks like it got in a fight with the laundry and lost. Despite that, his closet is somehow spilling from the seams. Little things build up, one by one, into an image of destitution.

Old textbooks and novels slop onto the floor, the bookshelf where they should be collecting dust on every surface.

He pouts. “Maybe I can make a feather duster out of sheets.”

Distantly, the shower shuts off, and panic grips him. Starts shoving his clothes into the closet, pressing his back against the overflowing doors. Scoops everything that doesn’t fit into neat piles.

Oh, and his bed needs—oh shit. His bed. His one singular bed.

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“Okay buddy,” Lance says, standing at the side of the bed in his sleep clothes. “Here’s the deal.”

Keith, on the other side, stares at the bed. Or rather, what’s in the middle of the bed.

“ _This_ ,” He allows for a single dramatic beat, “is the Wall of Jericho.” Lance spreads his arm in a flourish over the line of pillows and extra sheets that cleaves the territory. Plus a few shark plushies, courtesy of his mom.

“Rule One.” Lance sticks a finger up. “Do not cross the Wall of Jericho.” Keith nods, compliant. He looks fresh and clean, even in an old band t-shirt.

“Rule Two.” Another finger up. “Any fingers, limbs, extremities, or whatever to cross the Wall of Jericho will be chopped off and served to my neighbor’s dogs.” He’s seen Ms. Berkshire’s pugs eat worse.

Keith’s eyebrows lift off his face. Lance holds back a laugh. “Mullets included.”

“That’s fair.” Keith swipes a hand through his hair, as if cherishing it. “But what if _you_ cross it?”

“It’s my wall!”

“So?”

“So, I won’t be crossing it!”

“Oh,” he says. “Tough break for your neighbor’s dog, then.” His face is intense, so convincing that Lance nearly apologizes for joking. Then, his lips start shaking, small but visible.

“Rule Three,” Lance sputters, his own lips quivering despite himself. He claws for something new, racking his brain but he can’t—ugh.

“Whatever!” He throws his arms up, defeated. Keith is smirking fully now. “Go to sleep!”

He lets Keith get into bed first while he goes to flick the light off. In darkness it’s not as awkward, getting into bed with an almost stranger. Although _that_ sparks other, less holy thoughts that he immediately squashes. Afraid that the heat will bloom through him and into the sheets on the other side.

The wall of pillows and various soft things against his side feel too new, enough to keep him up for a while. He lays flat on his back under his separate blanket, wishing the glowing plastic stars could soothe him. What does the other half of his room look like to Keith? Is the dust sticking to his skin? It makes Lance stiff despite the soft sheets, how piles of laundry are still sticking out, his posters lopsided and slightly peeling. As if Keith is going to leave a 1-star review in the morning. _Would rather sleep in a jail cell, will not be coming back._

It shouldn’t matter. Let him whine, then. If it’s so bad he can just—

“Hey.” In the vibrating silence, Keith’s whisper is booming.

Lance swallows. “Yeah?”

“Cool stars.”

He gives nothing else. The rise and fall of Keith's breathing is simple, cleansing, judgement-free. The posters are fine. The clothes can be cleaned tomorrow. The dust is fine, probably. Little things fall away one by one, into easy acceptance.

“Thanks.” His spine melts. His eyes lull, letting the soft technicolor of the stars pull his brain waves into a new sleep cycle.

Maybe, in the morning, he won’t notice how gray the apartment gets with the early light. Maybe it won’t be gray at all.

And with that, finally, he sleeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave a comment if you'd like, i appreciate every single one!  
> tumblr: not-selfconfrontation  
> twitter: _not_self (best place to see chapter sneak peaks!)
> 
> thank you for reading, see you at the next chapter ❤️❤️


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for being patient, y'all!

The morning starts like this. Lance blinks his eyes open, and for a split second he’s warmly amused by the night’s dream. A sweet trick from the universe. He stretches out, long and luxuriously, a pleasant ache in his muscles. As if he had _actually_ invited — oh. His elbow jams into the plushies bordering his side. The last 24 hours whip through him like lightning, a janky film reel on rewind. The rain, some old man, Keith looking so completely —

Burning? No, wait. He gives an experimental sniff. Something’s _burning_. Lance shoots up, surveying the other half of the territory, a Keith-shaped depression in the sheets. 

“Oh _shitshitshitshit_.” He takes flight, lurching for the door handle when his socks slip against the hardwood. 

What he finds in the kitchen is Keith, flapping a towel against the black plume of smoke coming from his toaster, panic etched into every inch of him. 

“I just wanted to thank you!”

“You’re thanking me with _smoke_?! Who said you could even—”

“You said you didn’t have anything to eat, really, so I—” The fire alarm starts beep-beep-beeping, Lance slip-slides onto the floor trying to reach it, and Keith keeps flapping the towel like his life depends on it. And so they find themselves on the road an hour later, on the hunt for food.

“I’ll pay for the groceries,” Keith says, face grim, slumped over in the passenger seat.

“Well.” Lance lets a sigh loose. “At least we didn’t have to call your brother or something.” Not that he would have minded, meeting the closest person the town has to Superman. He swings a left at the traffic light, Big Ol’ Mini Mart appearing steadily over the horizon. Pretty much the best, and only, wholesale store Lance knows of in the area, but apparently Keith doesn’t.

“We’re going there?” He stares at the store like he’d rather jump out of the car at any second. 

“Uh, yeah dude?” Lance resists the urge to stare at Keith, keeping his eyes on Big Ol’ Mini Mart as it rolls into view. “What, you got an issue with bulk buying or something?”

Keith says nothing. Not a single word from him as Lance slides into a parking space. Then he practically has to be dragged out of the seat. As Lance pushes a cart up to the entrance, he’s honestly considering if he’ll have to strap Keith into the goddamn baby seat, when some hulk of a security guard sidesteps in front of them. Like a troll guarding his bridge. Now, hesitantly, Keith summons his voice.

“Uh, hey,” Keith starts. “...again.”

The guard shakes his head. Looks at the two of them, at _Lance_ , like they’re persona non grata.

“Okay, listen, we just —” he tries again, hands spread pleadingly. Like a Catholic schoolboy trying to beseech the principal. The guard simply shakes his head again. He directs a meaty finger to the storefront window, where Keith’s goddamn _mugshot_ is plastered. A condemning red X has been hastily sliced over. 

Lance gawks at it. “You can’t be serious.” 

Keith appeals his case. The guard somehow gets hulkier. When he reaches for the walkie-talkie strapped to his belt, Lance yanks Keith by the elbow back to the car, abandoning the cart like a lost ship at sea.

“I didn't,” Keith starts but cuts himself off, heaving a great sigh that presses his shoulders down to the ground. Glances at Lance, then quickly looks away.

“I remember this,” Lance grits out, because he filed this incident himself. His brain reads off the case report like it’s right in front of him; Keith Kogane, 23, thick eyebrows, altercation with a grocery stocker and several managers over...

 _"A jar of honey?"_ he blurts out. Keith flinches, directs his gaze to the sky like maybe God will do them all a favor and strike him down on the spot. “Who the fuck smashes a jar of honey, Keith? Did an apiarist rub you the wrong way?”

“It was a mistake,” he hisses. 

Yeah, Lance thinks to himself. This whole thing was a mistake. A funny little trick from the universe. Because here he is in a parking lot on a Saturday morning, sans groceries, sans breakfast, but stuck with a guy whose criminal record seems to be inescapable. Lance lets the lesson sink cruelly in his gut. What else could he have possibly expected?

He watches Keith avoid his gaze, kicking around at the gravel, and tries not to feel a bit of sympathy.

Why did he do this? 

He thinks of the rain, of star stickers, of clinking metal bars. _You know why._

“I know where else we can go?” 

A laugh breaks out of him, short and bitter. “Kinda sounds like you don’t.” 

“Trust me.” This time Lance almost chokes on his snort, but Keith seems immovable now. The sheer determination stiffening his brow, and the already ridiculous circumstances of the morning have Lance saying yes. Because what’s one more dumb decision? 

  
  


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Keith directs them back down the road they came, into the farther east side of town that Lance hadn’t gotten around to exploring yet. He’s game for now, but when Keith tells him to park on an empty street, with nothing but more pretty little suburban houses as far as he can see, his patience starts to rip at the seams. 

“We just have to walk. Parking gets too crowded,” Keith assures him, already speed-walking down the sidewalk.

It suddenly dawns on Lance that he’s letting himself be shepherded to an unknown second location by someone who he only knows through the other side of a jail cell. It sparks vague memories from his mother about stranger danger. Stranger doesn’t quite fit though. Frenemy. Or, uh, work nemesis? Maybe? _Whatever._ The point is that after two more blocks of speeding alongside Keith, his willingness to play game slips away.

“Sooooo, what? Where are we shopping, dude?” Keith gives him a look, but Lance continues. “Your murder lair? Because I gotta say, Dr. Lecter, human meat is not my —” The growing sound of people, a crowd, cuts him off. 

Once they turn the corner, it stops him in tracks completely. 

He wouldn’t exactly call it Middle Earth, but that’s how it feels to have discovered this — a bustling farmer’s market of people, produce and goods in every corner. All the stalls, popped up like colorful little soldiers, transform what was probably just an empty lot into an absolute maze. He sticks a little closer to Keith, who seems wholly unaffected by it.

As they pass through the white wooden arch at the entrance, he brushes a hand over honest-to-god hay bales. Resists the urge to pluck at the displays of fresh fruit, plump jewels in the August sun. " _This_ is where you go shopping?” Lance says. “How long has this place been hiding here?” 

“They don’t hide it. It’s just the season.” Keith shrugs. He looks warmed over, black tufts tinged bronze at the edges. “I used to come here all the time as a kid.” 

A woman in overalls provides him with a wicker basket, which Lance accepts gingerly, a disbelieving laugh under his breath. It’s as if somehow, in the two blocks they walked here, boring suburbia had dissolved like a simulation, replaced with the land of home-grown vegetables and artisanal bread.

Speaking of. Lance whips out his phone, reviewing the list of assorted groceries. “Okay, let’s pick up some bread first.” Keith nods, scouring the crowd for the best way through. Lance spots an arrow-shaped sign in the distance labeled _Baked Goods._

He points in the sign's direction, eastward, and announces, “That way.” Or at least, he _thought_ he announced it, yet the words came out in Keith’s voice as well. Keith, who happens to be pointing in the opposite direction.

“Sign is pretty clear, dude.”

“This way is quicker,” Keith insists.

“If that way was quicker, they would have put a — _Hey!_ ” Keith plucks the basket and takes off walking, laughing “C’mon!” over his shoulder, as if Lance is the one holding them up. The audacity. Soon enough, they’re both nudging through the masses, Lance grumbling all the way through. At least until the scent of something warm and yeasty drifts by. Then Lance can’t help but breathe it in deep, letting it direct his attention.

They arrive in an alley of sweetly decorated pastries, cakes, and, he admits sourly, loaves upon loaves of bread. Ciabatta, baguettes, rye, stacked in satisfying pyramids.

“ _Whatever_ ,” he goes, slanting a look in Keith’s direction. “Lucky guess.” Keith just smirks back at him, waving a hand over the stalls as if to say _Take your pick_. 

Lance tosses some sourdough and ciabatta into the basket, while Keith argues for the rye.

“It’s a dollar off!”

" _You’re_ a dollar off.”

They wander through the aisles like that, debating all the goods they can see, two blips in a sea of shoppers and market stalls. Keith escorts him around all the other hidden spots. The best of the watermelon, the golden apples, the sweet corn. He’s glad to listen in as Keith chats up the vendors about how their season’s been, which crops are sure to be a showstopper next time around.

Lance haggles with an elderly man who seems one light breeze away from creaking over, talking him down to $1.50 a pound for tomatoes. They scour over the plumpest of the bunch. He advocates for trial by color, because duh, but Keith, the absolute barbarian, just squeezes a little. Compressing each candidate just so. After an eon, the old man cracks his face in what Lance thinks might be a glare.

“You wanna hurry it up there, Julia Child?” 

“Hold on a sec,” Keith grunts, another tomato in hand. 

Then a passerby bumps Keith a little too hard. Tomato bits go bursting everywhere, red fluid and fleshy viscera dripping from his clenched fist.

A slow pause. Then —

“You’re paying full price,” the man grumbles.

Something bubbles up in Lance at that, at Keith shaking his hand clean of the vanquished tomato remains, then sheepishly forking over three dollars. Something deep from his gut, that shimmies up his throat, and flourishes as uncontrollable laughter. He has to clench at his gut, nearly doubling over while Keith gently drags him along.

“Sorry, I —” Lance tries to explain, but there’s a bit of tomato in Keith’s hair, and that just seems hilarious too, and so he has to laugh again.

He can’t believe it. How long has it been since he just...let it out like this? It strikes him, even in the throes of his humor, that this kind of effervescence hasn't been around in who knows how long. 

Now that he looks around, the town is unbelievably bright. The tree leaves glow neon in the sunlight, as if he’s just crawled out from underground. It shouldn’t be this astonishing. They’re just shopping, really. But it leaves him tender, his chest blossoming. His giggles become colored with disbelief as he looks at Keith, _Keith_ , this absolute weirdo, who’s staring back at him with genuine bewilderment.

“What’s up?” Keith asks, eyes black and bronzed, pouring over him.

“I just didn’t realize,” he lets out between the last wisps of his laughter, “how much fun this was.”

Keith’s smile is enough to soothe him once and for all, but it still leaves him with something vibrant and potentiated. The morning, despite its rough beginnings, now stretches out before him with possibility. What else is there to do? The grocery list is all crossed out. He searches the grounds, as daylight ticks over them, until the flea market appears in the back. _Gotcha._

Now he’s the one speeding off, Keith just behind him. This section is a whirl of vintage clothing, knickknacks and antiquated armchairs. He pauses over the unnervingly detailed portrait of George Washington, each of his teeth painted in red, white and blue. 

They stroll around, marveling over each table. Then something colored and sparkling peeks into view. “Well, well, well,” Lance goes, delighted. He pounces for the trinket on a nearby table. “Lookie what we have here.” 

“Lance. Please.”

“Oh, what?” He twirls the fuzzy purple handcuffs around his finger, grinning. “You don’t recognize these?” 

The cuffs are much too spacious for either of them. They slip down to the middle of Lance's forearm, leaving fluffy shivers in their wake. He grins, plan formulating, and throws himself against Keith’s side.

“I’m tellin’ ya officer, I didn’t do it!” 

“Lance,” Keith tries again, through his chuckles. The sound of it, smooth and deep, vibrates through the parts of Lance pressed against him. 

“I’m innocent!”

“Cut it out.” Keith turns his head to the side, lips quivering, but turns right back around when Lance slips the handcuffs on to him.

He takes one look at his arms, encased in fuzzy purple, then quirks his eyebrows back at Lance.

Lance grins. “What are you gonna do? Arrest me?”

Keith gives him a shove, a handsome grin curved against his scar, pink at the ears. Lance buys the handcuffs. The morning had left him so tranquil, as they headed towards the exit with their bounty, that the voice shouting, “Keith?” nearly threw him off kilter.

“Keith! Over here!” They turn as one to see a blonde woman in a sunhat, the lone vendor at her stall. Honey is stacked all around her, shimmering in ornate mason jars. As they get closer, Lance is honestly taken aback by all the different kinds; clover, acacia, sourwood. He looks over at Keith, who looks like he’d rather drown himself in the nearest jar if he could.

“Hi. Romelle.” It comes out slow, like Keith had to assess those two little words before he let them out.

“I didn’t know you guys were back in town!” She leans both elbows onto the countertop, then blinks right at Lance. “Friend of Keith?”

“Hmm, something like that,” Lance goes, nudging Keith with a shoulder. At the very least, work nemesis was starting to lose its flavor. 

“So, are you in town for a while now?” 

“Heh. Yeah.”

“I see you still won’t let Shiro cut that hair.” Then she goes on, to Lance now, “When we were all kids, Keith used to hide back here for hours just so Shiro couldn’t get his hands on him.” It sparks a laugh from her, genuine and nostalgic. Lance can’t pinpoint anything malicious in it. Can’t see why it makes Keith’s shoulders stiffen into concrete 

Lance smiles through it for another couple minutes, while Keith barrels through an arsenal of one word replies, until finally, Romelle starts to die down. Keith practically leaps for the out.

“Yeah, we should really get going.” There’s already a hand to his elbow, waiting to whisk them both away.

“Oh, oh, wait, here.” Romelle reaches over and grabs two jars of blackberry honey. “This is still your dad’s favorite right?”

The color drains out of Keith like he’s been smacked by a ghost. His hand falls away. Lance is ramrod straight, gaze stuck to the stark tendon split across Keith’s throat. The morning mellow starts drifting away, even though they’re still here, with all bustle and neon leaves. All he knows now, definitely, completely, is that it’s time to fucking go. Romelle goes to pack the jars up, forgetting that Keith had not answered, and leaves them in vacuous silence. 

Lance stands it for about three seconds.

“Hey —”

“ _Don’t,_ ” It chips out of him, so brittle and sharp that Lance clicks his mouth immediately. 

“Sorry.” Keith swallows. “I didn’t —” 

“It’s okay.” It's true but it still feels like band-aid to a stab wound, an injury he has no language for. That tendon is still jumping, and Lance thinks, remarkably, of Cell 17. Where with enough time, the words would fall out of Keith eventually. He tries to telepathize the morning’s good energy but if it reaches its target, he doesn’t know. Keith gives nothing else. And there’s no clipboard or criminal justice system out here to compel him.

“Here you are!” Romelle comes bouncing back, dropping a honeycomb-themed gift bag into Keith’s hands. He accepts it like it’s a grenade, like he might throw it and smash its contents to the ground at any moment.

It’s strange, Lance realizes, to wish that they were back in jail. It’s a wish that floats around him, taunting, as they trudged all the way through the exit.

  
  


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As soon as they enter the apartment, bags in tow, Lance immediately tries to walk back out. An annoyingly muscled arm shoots back and catches him by the elbow before he can disappear. 

“I can’t even imagine trying to clean all this up right now,” Lance groans. _This_ being the leftover debris of this morning’s almost-fire. Now, in the bright, lazy peaks of afternoon, he needs to devour something greasy and take a nap, pronto.

“It’s my fault. I’ll clean it up before I head back.” Keith drags him in, like Lance weighs nothing. _Definitely a gym rat_ , he notes. Grumbly, he watches Keith gather all the bags and bring them to the counter, and eventually joins him there

“First,” Lance goes, sweeping aside the charred nonsense, “Food.” 

He cooks up two grilled cheeses, all the while pleading to the universe that Keith doesn’t stare at all the _other_ mess that predates the morning. The piled up dishes. The mosaic of condiment stains tattooed onto the cabinets and cupboards. But it doesn’t come. Instead, Keith bumps his shoulder with his own, and thanks him for the sandwich. They inhale their meal, leaned side-by-side. 

Then it's time to scrub-a-dub-dub. Lance rebuffs Keith’s insistence that he should sit back and let Keith make up for it with a handwave, insisting in return that Keith wasn’t his maid. First is the dishes, which continue to gleam with grime, despite his elbow grease. Keith tosses out the rest of the burned foodstuffs and the shell of a toaster.

“I’ll...get you a new one. Sorry.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lance goes, holding back a chuckle. “While you’re in the ‘getting things for me’ mood, hand me some towels? They’re somewhere around here.”

While Keith goes off on his search, a tiny _bzzt-bzzt_ in his pocket grabs Lance’s attention. 

_Hunk: Lance! Buddy! Are we still doing lunch next week??_

Oh. Shit, yeah, that’s right. Maybe he could fake bird-flu? Find a sudden monstrous stack of case files that simply have to be done? He considers it, and is then instantly swamped with guilt. He doesn’t _want_ to flake, really. Not on Hunk. But the thought of lurking out to Balmera Heights by himself, without anything to show for all the fanfare he made about going out on his own? He’d rather peel his skin off. To see Hunk, in his new job, in his new place, with his new girlfriend, all of which Lance is happy for, really, he _is_. But, it’s also another reminder that he —

The ruffling of papers shushes his thoughts, and he turns around to see Keith, standing guiltily over the pile of grad school paraphernalia on the floor, papers fluttering around him. 

“Accident!” Keith goes. “I really am —”

“Okay if you say you’re sorry again, I’m gonna have to find some glue,” he quips, “because you’re sounding like a broken record.”

He wipes his hand against his pants again, scooting over to help Keith shuffle everything together. There’s the flash of random print against white paper: _— of recommendation, personal statement, GRE minimum_ , and then —

“You’re going to Altea?” Keith holds out a particularly fancy sheet, presenting Lance with the fancy cardstock and ornate Altean University letterhead that he’s had to stare at for the last month.

He snatches it back, a secret let loose. “I’m not _going_ there. It’s just a tour invite.”

“You don’t wanna go?” Keith’s gaze is open, genuinely curious, but Lance sharply turns away. 

“Let’s just clean up, alright?” His muscles crunch up, as if it's waiting for Keith to push, ready to defend. But again, it never comes. He just helps Lance scoop everything up, places it back on the island. They keep on tidying the kitchen, a comfortable rhythm formed between them. The tension in his body diffuses bit by bit. The cool relief of not having someone or something poking at him.

In the moments where they take towels to wipe the cabinetry clean and Lance stares at him for a little too long out of the corner of his eye, it seems like Keith doesn’t notice. He says nothing, rapt in his scrubbing. But his lips ripple in the tiniest smile. Lance averts his gaze, ears red, and tries to keep his lips from doing the same.

When they finish up and Keith goes to grab his bags, Lance pulls out his phone to text Hunk.

_You know it dude, Can’t wait._

  
  


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“So I assume that Shiro hasn’t called you yet?” He hears Allura ask Keith. To an untrained observer, Allura is the picture-perfect professional she normally is. Manicured hands neatly on her hips. Not a single hair out of place, steady against the twilight wind. But Lance can catch the subtle wrinkles of discomfort. Even while he leans against his car, pretending not to eavesdrop as the two of them converse on the sidewalk. Keith is turned away into the light of the police station, his expression a complete mystery.

A few minutes later he joins Lance standing on the curb, after Allura leaves him with a passive-aggressive squeeze on the shoulder and an order to stop getting into trouble.

“I don’t think she likes me too much.”

“Yeah, well. Constantly dealing with a jailbird like you has to be pretty taxing on the soul.” It’s meant as a joke, but apparently misfires. He’s forced to watch, in small horror, as Keith plops himself down on the curb, body deflating.

Lance joins him down there, nudges him with his ankle. “I didn’t mean it like that. Sorry.”

“S’not you. I mean...” He shrugs, but doesn’t continue.

They both stare out into the evening. A few miles from the police station is the Olkarion river, rippled with the last of the fading daylight. And miles beyond that is Altea. The city. Glittered and bustling with the sound of night life, audible even in their tiny suburbs on the outskirts.

“Sooooo,” Lance starts. “Shiro’s stuck with a fire or something?” The blatant admittance to eavesdropping should probably be guilt-inducing, but as the sky starts to swallow them up in darkness, he can’t bring himself to pretend.

“A bunch of forest blazes out by his conference.” Keith’s head flops into his hands. “So you think the bank has a soft spot for part-time mechanics?”

“Uh, probably not. Why’s that?”

“Because I’m gonna go broke on motels for the next two weeks.”

When he looks at Keith, hair wild and tufted, groaning with his head in his hands, Lance doesn’t see ‘criminal.’ It’s just...Keith. He sees the guy who he sits and argues with on the other side of the jail cell, because no one else would. The guy who dragged him into the world today, into glowing sky and sunlight. Who, rather sweetly, couldn’t stop apologizing.

He sees someone who needs someone.

Honestly, Lance was losing hope for criminal justice. All the stacks of paper that led to nothing. He thought maybe coming out here, into the suburbs, where no one else knew him, would be the kind of respite he needed. Test his luck. Whatever, he doesn’t know, jumpstart things. Put himself out there and figure the rest out. 

Or maybe he just lost hope. His heart is a tough thing to swallow.

But he does remember freshman Lance, plunking down in his seat on the first day of classes, surrounded by other hopefuls like him. _Yes_ , he had thought, elated, _this is what I can do. This is how I can help._

“I know where you stay.” The words slip out before his brain can get a grip on them. Then he remarks, “Bankruptcy free.”

Keith twists his way, gapes at Lance like he’s offering the moon and stars.

“You don’t need to do that,” he whispers. “I’ve already...I don’t need pity or — ”

“It’s not that.” There’s also the echo of his apartment, replaced with the sound of two people. How the light today had been a sweet pale amber.

“I just meant today was cool, is all I’m saying. Not that I’m exactly ecstatic to be out of a toaster.” More apologies start to flow out, but a nudge to Keith’s shoulder corks it.

“So, yeah.” He swipes through his hair, lamely, trying not to be so ceremonial about it. “You can kick it at my place for a little bit.”

They fall into a lull. Lance is glad for the slight reprieve, a chance to absorb what he just said. 

“Thank you.” His voice is a quiet thing, with a smile to match.

“But Rule One.” One finger up. “The Wall of Jericho is non-negotiable. Can’t have you corrupting my innocence.”

“I wasn’t gonna —” Keith splutters.

“Rule Two.” Another finger up. “No crimes under my roof. Stay outta the station the whole time, alright dude?”

“Alright. Absolutely.” 

They sit there till the streetlamps kick in, cutting triangles of light all around. The nearest one just barely catches them, tingeing Keith in a honeyed silhouette. It tugs at something, some bundle of weirdness in his chest that loosens when Keith smile turns brilliant, hair strands fluttering around as tiny lines of light. 

“Rule Three?” 

“I’ll let you know when I think of it,” he lies, smiling in return. Because Rule Three isn’t something he’s ready to let loose into the air, not yet at least. Instead he shivers in the breeze, like an animal upturned on its back, belly exposed, and hopes to anyone and anything that this works out.

It’s a hope that follows him back to the apartment. They return to the kitchen, now more sparkling than when Lance first moved in, and concoct a pasta dinner he thinks Hunk would give five stars. From the corner of his eye, he notices Keith picking through the pantry for onion and garlic, only to pause, face sour, at the jars of honey from the market. He clenches it. Unclenches it. And then returns to the counter like nothing happened.

But even then that hope keeps alive, swishing inside him.

Even as they both retreat to bed for the night. Even as he lays flat on his back, staring intently at the faint glow of his stars, thinking of the holding cells, of Keith just on the other side. Probably laying there like one long line of tension.

Rule Three, he thinks, is to trust. To not break this, whatever this is flickering around them. Those far-off daydreams well up again, of him and a mysterious stranger beneath the sheets, trading a secret for a secret. 

But he doesn’t let that into the air either.

Instead he whispers, a strange ache crashing up him, through him, and out of his mouth, “I don’t think I’m cut out for Altea.” He pauses. “I don’t...know if I even want to go.” 

For a moment, all those words float around, harmless, wading in the darkness and those safe 12 inches of plush and bedsheet. As if the night had softened their edges. He imagines Keith on the other side, asleep, completely unaware. But then the sheets start shifting around.

“Oh?”

“Yup.”

Keith coughs, as if to make room for the words, and whispers, “My dad used to eat blackberry honey, like, everyday. He put it on everything.” He huffs, with a hint of laughter. “Only blackberry.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Then, a real chuckle, steadier, the last sound either of them makes for the night.

Hours later, when his skin is still buzzing, he flips over. Peeks over into the other territory. Car headlights shift through the blinds, revealing things he might not have noticed in the day. The rise and fall of Keith’s chest, unmarred by tension. The whisper of his breath. The sharp peak to his scar. And in the day, Lance might see how this could be a little weird. How these aren’t really things he should look for in his impromptu roommate.

But that’s what night is for.

And with the way another streak of headlights limns Keith’s eyelashes in silver, he doesn’t mind how long the night is.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for your patience guys. This chapter has the scene that I basically wrote this whole fic for, so I hope you enjoy!

With Monday comes the work week, and the burst of their bubble. But the routine they fall into is still easy, as if they’d always had it. In the mornings, Lance drops Keith off at Marmora Mechanics where he works part-time, tweaking his motorcycle and overexplaining the importance of replacing your air filter to middle-aged moms. In the afternoons, they meet outside of the apartment. Tired from the day but invigorated by each other.

Dinner is always cooked by the two of them; a welcomed new trend. But when it gets too goddamn hot to cook (Keith’s words), they pick from Lance’s stockpile of takeout menus, huddling up on the couch, burning their mouths on pepperoni slices. 

Okay, that’s just Lance.

But the vibrato of Keith’s snickering leaves another, more pleasant burn along his skin.

Keith becomes his insistent chauffeur to and from work. He’ll text Lance _I’m outside_ , but still comes in to wait for him. As if to prove the station can be a handcuff-free zone for him. Offering a pleasant “I haven’t committed any crimes today,” smile to Allura. Allura is polite. Lance holds back ugly laughter. 

His motorcycle is a sleek, serpentine thing. This is why, of course, Lance takes tight hold of Keith when they zoom off, his fingers scrunching up the sides of Keith’s jacket. Safety. Duh.

The Wall suffers some...casualties. At the end of the bed, where Lance’s feet begin to cross over, swishing to get comfortable. He snuggles his toes into the sheets, trying to recall what he had put there that was so solid and fleshy and —

“Your feet are cold,” Keith mumbles. 

“The room is cold!” But neither of them moves. No extremities are chopped off. Yet. Spurred on by darkness, more secrets are let loose. Easy things, silly, unburdened by the harsh steel of cell walls. 

“When I first got my bike, I did so many donuts that I puked into my helmet.”

“I once spent so long arguing with myself in the shower, Hunk had to bust the door down to check on me.”

On Friday afternoon, Allura addresses the officers in the debriefing room. Her laser pointer swishing over the whiteboard. Dossiers of cases and patrol beats get handed out one by one, like leaves drifting from a tree.

Lance only watches. From the back. Taking notes.

“Lance,” Allura calls out. She’s stashing away papers and folders into her bag. The room has been left to just the two of them.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get the minutes to you by tomorrow morning,”

“No, it’s not that.” She walks over and pulls up a seat next to him, legs crossed neatly. 

“I heard Keith’s staying with you?”

“Oh!” He flushes, but only God knows why. The need to explain himself takes over. “Yeah, it's just until, y’know, the forest blazes get handled.”

“It’s good of you.” But her smile holds worry, a pensive slope to her eyebrow. “I’m not sure if any of my own officers would have offered help like that.”

“Well—” Nope. Can’t even try to argue. He had once watched Officer Rolo mute his pager so he could spend an entire desk shift watching NASCAR highlights.

“Which is why,” She pulls another manila folder from her bag, slides it across the table to him. A thin, beige sheath of opportunity. “I have a job for you.” 

  
  


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“So this is what the station has officers do?” Keith asks. On the roof of the local middle school, they’re lounged back in some cheap lawn chairs, blankets protecting them from the cool night winds. All of the little houses and buildings bathed in sleepy evening blue.

“Technically, I’m not an officer.” Lance grumbles, unfolding his binoculars. The principal had given her permission for the stakeout to take place on the roof, as long as it was well after-school hours. Not that it mattered. Even the middle-schoolers could handle whatever terrible, dusty fate was waiting within the old library. 

“And since when is this place so high stakes?” Keith rummages through the police issue go-bag, which had only been good for carrying their snacks and the walkie-talkie.

“If Allura says something is going on, I believe her.” Or at least, he would try to believe her.

Through the green tint of the night vision, he can make out the children’s handprint art splayed lovingly on the front walls. There’s the slightly cracked front window, reported by one of the librarians. Another had discovered an unlocked back door when she came for her morning shift, and none could remember if it had been closed properly the night before. But that was it. 

Why Lance had been sent to watch one of the quietest places in the neighborhood, as if a burglar were going to jump from the windows at any second, arms full of mystery novels and peppermint candies from the front desk, was beyond him.

Maybe it is a burglar. Or a serial killer. Or a serial killer burglar. Yeah. That’s good enough for him at the moment.

At least he’s got company. Keith, once he heard that Lance would be doing this alone at night, had driven them over on his treasure of a motorcycle. Despite Lance’s halfhearted protests about official police work and staying up too late and honestly, dude, it won’t even matter, he comes anyways. Which is just so Keith, so stupidly sweet, that he almost doesn’t want to think about it. But it can’t be helped.

“What are you even starting at?” Keith asks, through munching. A nearly empty bag of chips in hand.

“Okay, Mr. Questions, I’m — Hey!” Lance glares at him. “These are supposed to last us through the night!” 

“Well.” Keith goes, with an adorable furrow in his eyebrows. “It’s night.” 

Fair point. Lance steals a handful of salty chips. Ignoring Keith’s silent gloating. He returns to his binocular, stuffing his mouth without breaking his gaze. The saltiness seizes his jaw.

All there is to do is stare at those unassuming brick walls. And stare. And stare. The wind is gentle over his skin, legs snug under his blanket. Maybe he should have brought the police-issue handcuffs, just in case. Never mind that he wasn’t allowed to use them. Those mandatory self-defense lessons that sat dormant in his brain start to stir, but only god knows why.

Because it’s the goddamn library. 

But he also can’t complain. Not to Allura, at least. If this was his one chance, then he’d spend the whole night here. And maybe after this, Allura exiles him back to the desk. Okay. That would absolutely gut him, but…maybe there’s a timeline where she doesn’t. It’s not totally clear what the specifics of a promotion will look like. But he’s not sure he cares. Some voice wiggles in his brain, worried because _you’re supposed to care dumbass._ He strangles it quiet. Because whatever leg-up he might get after this, it’ll be something.

The sleepy allure of a picturesque view and fuzzy blankets is impossible to ignore, as the night goes on. The binoculars dangle comfortably. One of them pulls their chairs together, snacks piling onto their laps. By 1AM, his head nestled on Keith’s shoulder, a leg draped across Keith’s knees. He stares at that handsome flash of canine, bright in the glare of the true crime documentary puttering from his phone.

“You look sleepy,” Keith says. His jawline seems even sharper, somehow. It strikes Lance into new altitudes of dopiness, words flopping out of his mouth — 

“You look good.”

“What?”

Ooookay. Lance shakes himself up, slapping a little vigor into his cheeks.

“I meant, uh— some woods. Sure wish I had some woods to run around in. Wake me right up. Ha.”

“Need some of the Gatorade?” Keith reaches for the go-bag.

“No, no.” Lance rubs his eyes. Tries to push past the embarrassment taking purchase in his gut. “Um. Ask me something. Anything. It’ll get my brain going.”

“Okay.” Keith clears his throat. “You’re going up to Altea in a few weeks, right?”

“I was thinking more like, ‘Which celebrity would you have over for dinner’ but, yeah. Why?”

“Do you have a ride?”

Something in his chest squeezes and squirms. They both already knew the answer. His car, ol’ faithful girl that she was, might as well have been held together by duct tape and chewed up gum. Too junked for the 2 hour trip. “Not exactly.”

“Let me take you.” 

“Keith.” Delight blooms across his face. “You’re gonna have to let me give you gas money for all these rides y’know?”

Now amusement sparks across Keith’s face, a firework in the night. “Absolutely not.” 

They stare at each other just like that for a while, stupid grins on their stupid faces, and Lance can’t remember what he did for the universe to put him up here, but he’d gladly do it again.

“I guess I don’t have a choice then.” He'll sneak some twenties into Keith's wallet anyways.

“Nope.”

Harsh, rattling metal crashes on the street below. Lance jerks up first, scrambling for his binocular and folding himself over the edge.

“Shit, shit.” His green-tinted gaze swoops left, right, before landing on the knocked over trash bins in front of the library. A few soda cans crinkle as they roll into the street.

Allura definitely said don’t engage. Don’t pursue, just watch. But how can he watch from up here, right? The angular positioning is _completely_ off. So that’s how he ends up grabbing Keith, who only manages to snag the last bag of chips. Zooming down through the school and onto the streets below.

The only cover is Keith’s motorcycle, parked across the library. They crouch and shrink themselves on the curb behind it, Keith hissing while Lance tries to shove him down further.

“Don’t be a baby!”

“Why don’t you just call someone?”

“Because —” And he stops there, because exposing his logic would allow it to fall apart.

“Just watch,” he grumbles instead. With his binoculars in hand, he surveys the street. But nothing dares to move again. Lance frumps back onto the curb, sighing.

Keith settles next to him. “We left the blankets up there,” he mumbles.

“Here.” Before really thinking about it, Lance’s arm is sliding across his shoulder. Keith leans into him, black strands dancing with brown over their shoulders. None of it’s a big deal. It’s not. But the weight of them leaning on each other feels like a tiny miracle anyways. Something marvelous and pearly to behold. 

“Thanks again for coming with me, by the way,” he says, smiling.

“Of course.” As if accompanying Lance is just a given. 

“So. How’d you get a bike like this?”

“Huh?” 

“I think the fanciest thing in this town are those new Zarkon apartments. Where’d you get a cool ride like that one?”

Too late he realizes that it might come across an accusation, that he’s already messed up. But Keith doesn’t seem to mind it. “From the city. I scouted it at a junkyard, but I didn’t have the stuff to fix it up.” He shrugs. “When we came back, I started working for Kolivan and he let me scavenge parts if I started working for him.”

“How long were you in the city?” 

“Just a couple months moving here.” His voice starts to dwindle. “Shiro…thought it’d be better to get back home.” If Lance squints, it looks like tension in the line of Keith’s neck, his jaw set like marble, and regret seizes in Lance’s ribs. The universe already put him here. He shouldn’t question it. He shouldn’t push it. _What does better mean?_ It perches on the edge of his tongue, but he knows all the other questions will spill out behind it so instead he blurts — 

“Pass the chips!” He winces at creak of his voice. “Uh, from the bag.”

Keith does just that. They work their way to the bottom of the bag in silence, Lance brainstorming ways to keep talking. Meanwhile, he returns to the binoculars. Just in time to see some man smash his way out of the front library window, all shaggy blonde hair and baggy clothing, with an armful of books.

Lance gapes. “For real?!” His shout is the loudest, and only sound on the street. The guy flips around. He stares at Lance. Then Keith. They both stare back.

Then the guy books it so hard, there might as well be a cartoon cloud of dust. 

“Go, go, holy shit!” He nearly chokes on the chips as he yanks Keith onto the motorcycle with him. 

“You can’t be —” Keith turns back only to click his mouth shut when he sees the look on Lance’s face, magma-intense. It flows between their gazes. Without another question, he cranks the ignition and they zip off, cutting through the streets like silk ribbon. 

The wind flurries around with the desperate hopes in his head, because this is it, right? This has to be it. Whatever they’re zooming towards around the corner is something, something that makes him useful, something bright as sunlight on the horizon, something like —

A giant RV hurling past them.

That might be his appendix knocking around his ribcage as Keith yanks them into a sharp U-turn, but he can’t really feel it. Not while he’s pressed to the heat of Keith’s back, stark against the wind, chasing something that looks like his future.

  
  


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They pursue the guy into the outskirts of town, blowing past the sidewalk flower boxes and streetlights dotting the night sky, into the abandoned underpass. The RV halts just underneath the bridge. Keith swerves to a stop behind it.

Lance scrambles off, and goes, “Stop in the name of—” only to feel the murky puddle of cigarette butts and sewer water soak into his canvas shoes.

“Ugh.” Don’t vomit. “Stop in the name of the law!”

Silence, save for the screech of cats fighting in the distance. The RV is still shaking from its abrupt halt, but no one exits. Maybe he can try another one liner — the one about his library card being all checked out sounds kinda good — but then the the RV door busts open on its creaking hinges.

“Okay, okay, man, you got me,” The guy steps out, his hands up shakily. Somewhere in his 40s. Blonde hair matted against his skin, a big toe peeking out the hole in his sneakers.

“Um.” Lance says.

“So —” Keith pipes up.

“Shh!” He flicks a hand behind him, then turns fully to the man. “You can, uh, put your hands down.” The man does just that, shoulders relaxing. “Can I get your name, sir?”

“Darryl.”

“Confess, Darryl!” His voice rings triumphant. It sounds vaguely like he’s revealed the mask on a Scooby-Doo villain. “You’ve been the one breaking into the library, haven’t you?!”

Darryl gulps, and his voice breaks into a confession.

“I didn’t have a choice, I swear. I—we got evicted from our apartment when Zarkon Condominiums took over and—”

We? Framed in the RV window is a tiny face with wide eyes peeking through the curtains, her face scrunched with worry. His heart starts to crack.

“We don’t have an in-town address anymore, so the library wouldn’t accept us but she needs her books for school. This—this is my family, man, and that makes you do things. I just didn’t know how else to—” Darryl’s shoulders start to tremble. The pieces of Lance's heart fall like stalactites into his gut

“I’m so sorry.” he blurts out. “I shouldn’t have chased you like this, I didn’t—” 

“I can’t go to jail. Really.”

“No! Of course, not. Just, please, give me one moment.” He flees back to Keith, who looks far-off, like Darryl’s voice had transported him to another planet.

“Keith.” The second-guessing takes over him at once, coming out in quiet hisses. “Holy shit. I can’t call Allura. But, also, I literally have to, right? This is illegal, but it's also just some books and stuff, there’s not any reason to call this in, and did you see her in the window? And her eyes, they’re so big. Like, kitten-puppy big. And I didn’t even know the school district had rules like that since when do they—”

A strong hand grasps his, a calloused thumb rubbing over his palm. 

“Too many questions, Lance.” Keith looks at him like everything’s fine, or that it will be fine, his hand is so warm and Lance can’t be completely sure that this is reality. “What’s the _real_ problem, here?”

The purr of Keith’s motorcycle idling flows like white noise as he brainstorms what to do. In the end, Allura doesn’t get called. He’s not even sure if he’ll report this. After some googling, he gives Darryl the address of a shelter that’s still within the school district’s borders, who’ll let him use their address for the library. With a promise to return the books to the library’s dropoff box once they’ve gotten settled, they head off. The girl waves goodbye with her whole arm, gazing at him until they’re a blip in the distance. And that? It’s something. A bright seed taking root. 

“That guy was right,” Keith says as Lance settles in behind him, smiling.

“Yeah?”

“Family makes you do crazy shit.” He doesn’t expand on that, and for now, Lance doesn’t worry about prodding. Just scrunches his fingers in the safety of Keith, as they go back to collect their stuff.

  
  


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What a goddamn beautiful afternoon. Sunlight peeking out behind children’s book clouds, glinting off the cafe’s windows. Balmera Heights, a small city just a few miles from his own, was beloved for views like this. Since it’s Sunday, the city-dwellers have slowed down. Just children hopscotching on the curb.

From the table, Lance watches Keith hover at the counter, face scrunched as he peruses the chalkboard wall of daily specials, and can’t believe how much he loves today.

“Keith’s a pretty cool dude,” Hunk says, through a mouthful of sriracha-peanut butter cupcake. Apparently it wasn’t as disgusting as it sounds. The cafe was Hunk’s suggestion, some avant-garde, hole-in-the-wall that he and Shay had been ordering from religiously. This whole block was all cold pressed juice kiosks and organic skincare stores.

“Yeah.” he sighs, contentment bleeding through. “You two robot nerds must be having a blast.” The hours of lunch were turning into early dinner. Sandwich platters and half-eaten powdered cronuts piling around as Keith and Hunk gabbed about whatever made mechanical engineering so interesting. 

“Is your bike running on a 280-X series engine?” Hunk had raved once they arrived at the curb. “I thought they took those off the market!”

Keith had split into a grin, and with a simple “Yup,” that was that. Lance was happy to listen, watching worlds collide in the best way. Why had his stomach been so knotted over this? Earlier, Hunk had laughed his way through the story of how one of his coworkers had retrofitted a robot to draw ugly holiday cards for everyone, then mailed them to a rival engineering start-up.

There was no terrible pang of FOMO. Just Keith pressed against his left, Hunk across the table, cackling, and the sugary tang of overly-inventive cupcakes. 

“To be honest dude,” Lance turns from watching Keith, still perusing the counter top display, to Hunk. With the steady tone of voice that means he needs to listen now.

“Uh oh.”

“It’s nothing bad!” Hunk grins. “I’m just glad you found a new roommate.” 

“Oh, really?” 

“I know you still have all the Altea stuff to worry about, and Allura really needs you,” Hunk assures him. He nudges Lance's foot. “But you get stuck in your own head sometimes, buddy.”

“Well —” he tries to protest.

“I was just a little worried that you were building your own cage.”

And _oh_ , doesn’t it suck? When the truth doesn’t sync until you hear it out loud? Like a bird, flying along through what seems like open skies, only for the glass skyscraper to smack it dead.

“Yeah.” Lance acquiesces with a tiny shy smile. “Maybe.” What else can he say? The apartment had felt fuller, his room easier to sleep in, with Keith on the other side of the Wall. The pile of things to do have been a little quieter, as their nighttime talks got louder.

“That being said, please let me swing by your place more.” Hunk whines, crumbs of cupcake around his mouth. “I can barely navigate this city. Like, it took me two months just to find a market as good as the one by your place.”

"Wha— does everyone in the world know about this farmer’s market?” 

“Yup. Maybe you’re just blind.” Keith says, returned with a plate of bacon wrapped croissants, plus a lemon cupcake for Lance. 

“Yeah.” Lance grins, accepting it. Their fingers share heat in the transfer, lingering. “Maybe.” 

  
  


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Monday morning is not fun. Monday morning finds Lance, gripping his bag, pacing outside of Allura’s office. Reciting all the justifications, and the excuses and the reasonings he could muster. Or maybe he should just lie? 

He stops.

No, no lying.

What he imagines is this: A manicured hand tapping with impatience. Platinum eyebrows furrowed. Her crisp, lilting voice, “Why exactly didn’t you call in, Lance?” He continues to pace again, until the momentum of his movement coalesces into finally, finally, knocking on her office door.

“Come in!”

The air is fresh with lavender, which should be relaxing. The windows of her office are iridescent with daylight, winking at him. And yet his nerves fail him. 

“Good after-morning, ma’am! I mean, Allura. Good morning. Hey.”

Allura smiles. “Morning, Lance. What can I do for you?”

“It’s time for our debrief?” Her face falters with confusion, and he blurts, “or I can just come back later? Yeah, later sounds great, actually.”

“No, please, my mistake!” She gestures to the lone chair across her desk. “I’ve actually been looking forward to this.”

He plants himself down. “You have?”

Across the desk, Allura is seated with her pens and pencils, her badges, her plaques. In all the time he’s followed her career, there’s never been a blemish on her record. When praised for this, she only gives the same answer: “I’m here to help people, as best as I can.”

So is he. But the guilt pokes at his gut regardless.

“I suspected that the library may have been a bit more…complicated than the prelims had let on.” She goes. 

“You did?” Two word replies are all he’s capable of, it seems.

“Mmhmm.” She lays her gaze directly on him, with nothing but kindness. “So, is there anything of note you wish to share?”

And here, in the open space, in the moment that isn’t as terrible as he imagined, he says, “Just that, Zarkon Inc., that new developer buying up all those properties in town? I think they might be violating some housing laws with their condominiums.” And by think, he means he’s goddamn sure of it.

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. These are all the dozens of random evictions just from the past month.” He pulls out a folder, with all the unearthed evictions just like Darryl’s he’s found over the weekend. There’s also the murky corporate feel he gets from their logo, like agents were going to whisk him away just for looking at it. But he’s a professional, so he doesn’t mention it.

Holding the evidence makes things steadier. “People are trying to do the best they can.”

“You’re absolutely right.”

“And you know there’s — “ He blinks. “Really?”

“You are.” Allura coughs, folding her hands in front of her. “I’ve been trying to work with the town to deal with Zarkon’s behaviors, but there’s been little give. In the meantime, there needs to be amnesty for those who get caught up in their bullshit.” Hearing her curse feels like hearing a rainbow; seemingly impossible but delightful. She smiles at him. “Which is why I sent you. Whatever happened at the library, I knew you’d figure out the right thing to do.”

She opens up her desk drawer, pulling out another mystery folder. The ornate Altea University logo is stamped across it. His heart slows to near-standstill.

“There are always other solutions to our problems, Lance.”

  
  


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In the evening, they go out for drinks to celebrate how Lance didn’t get put out of a job today. Keith brings them Luxite Blades, a little lounge on some corner street. It’s a slow night. There’s a nice circular booth in the back, with squishy velvet that swallows them up. He waits while Keith goes to order their drinks. With a view of the cars passing them by, sliced by streetlights, and it takes Lance back to that first night, when it was pouring rain and the universe felt fresh. 

The LED lights are watercolor over every surface, cycling through reds, blues and purples. The reds were the best. The burgundy shine in Keith’s hair makes it that much harder to keep his fingers still. 

He never imagined the town would have this sort of place. Another new corner of the world that Keith was showing him. All the gentle buzz of conversation and lowly pulsating music vibrates straight through his hair follicles. 

It gets even worse when Keith returns with their drink tray. A shot of Jäger mixed with Sprite for Keith, a giant fishbowl cocktail for Lance, eclipsing their heads with neon-blue. 

He sets them down and sighs, “Lance.”

“Hold up, my dude,” Lance immediately latches onto the bright yellow straw (or maybe green, he can’t tell with the lights) and slurps. Several gummy fish swirl around the center whirlpool. It’s mostly soda, but it still settles nicely in his bones. 

“You drink like you’re getting married tomorrow.”

“Me? Get married? I’d never deprive the world like that.” He adds a wink, and then considers dancing his fingers up Keith’s arm for effect. Instead he settles for jumbling their feet together, the knobs of their ankles pecking each other. It’s much nicer than expected.

“So how’d you find this place, anyways?” Lance asks.

A few moments of silence, though not uncomfortable.

“My parents.” Keith takes a sip. “They both used to work the night shift here during college. It’s how they met. My mom missed a couple nights of work for a family emergency but my dad thought she quit and freaked. When she came back, he asked her out.” 

“Dude," Lance coos. "That's super sweet. Like, I need to go visit my dentist levels of sweet.” Suddenly the lounge feels historical, like the velvet holds the secrets to romance.

Keith shrugs, but there’s a smile with it. “Yeah. Shiro thinks so too. My dad almost made them get married here, but my mom thought it was too much. Getting married was corny enough for her.”

Listening to Keith is like listening to the birds, or to trains passing by. He could do it all day. As long as he’s allowed. And isn’t that what it means to be with someone? The simplicity pulsing in his heart with every word of Keith’s story about his parents, how they had gotten married in the city instead.

“Would you?” Lance blurts. “Get married, I mean. Like ever, in just a general sense. Y’know?” His voice croaks at the end, a cherry on top of that disastrous rambling sundae. 

“Yeah. I mean.” Another sip. “I know it’s pretty early to think about all that stuff but yeah. It’d be nice to just. Sit down somewhere. With someone. I mean.” He looks out to the passing cars. “It’s not much, now that I say it out loud.”

“No!” Keith startles, turning back. The lights bathe him in purples, but that word is too simple. He’s the color of a far-off galaxy, of August twilight, of illusion. Of something so visionary the universe has yet to invent it, a dream without language. “That’s perfect.” 

Lance had just been joking earlier about not getting married, but it clicks for him that maybe he wasn’t. Or rather, he just hadn’t thought about it for so long. Old images crash into him, those Netflix rom-com scenes of the married life. Grilling at Lance’s family barbecues. Doing absolutely nothing, but together. Zooming around on the back of his motorcycle—uh. Or hers, or whoever! Anyone’s motorcycle! 

But why had he stopped? Marriage had been in the same box as grad school, as where he would live after all this, of what his career was supposed to look; vague pieces of a world far down the road.

_I was worried you were starting to build your own cage there, buddy._

To sit down, not in a cage he built for himself, but on a porch, with the heat of another person pressed against him, birds and trains passing by. A puzzle they forgot to finish, and lost the pieces to. It really does sound perfect. He wants to laugh at how strange it is, and then he is laughing, because what is there to stop him?

“I’d love something like that too,” he continues. 

“Yeah?” Keith grins. “Just in a general sense, or?” That gets another chuckle out of him, and Keith too. Ankles and arms shifting together. For a few more hours, they drift together in the space of watercolor lights and conversation.

Keith murmurs into his ear, “Do you wanna head home?” Lance nods, and heads to the counter for a to-go cup to save the fishbowl. They lumber out onto the street, stark with normal streetlights. A drizzle has started. Looks like the universe has read his mind. Although they stick underneath storefront awnings, he allows himself to wave his arm out into the open air. The pitter-patter is too good to pass up.

“You love the rain.” Keith mumbles, a simple fact. 

“Ha. Yeah.” Who doesn’t, though? The chilled droplets run like liquid energy across his arm. Then it’s not just his arm, but his whole body, as Keith pulls them both out into the open sky. 

Now he’s the one staring. Keith combs a hand through hair on his nape. “It’s only a few more blocks, any— _woah._ ” 

What’s the point of a summer drizzle, if you won’t spin in it? Lance whirls Keith around in a full arc, and takes in the adorable shock on his face. The giggling as they both kick puddles at each other for the next few blocks. Rain sliding down his hands and onto Keith’s, like a shared secret. It supercharges him.

By the time they get back to the apartment, to the kitchen, Lance is near to bursting. He seats himself onto the countertop, eyes magnetized to Keith, but forgets that he’s holding the cup. A bit of neon-blue sloshes over his shirt.

“Whoops.”

“Here,” Keith comes over with a napkin, standing just outside the space between his legs, and starts blotting. And suddenly, he, them, everything feels dangerous. The heat of Keith, who steps closer, now staring directly at him, napkin abandoned. The tiny hairs standing straight on Lance's neck. Keith’s gaze flickers, just for a moment, and Lance fights the urge to lean, like a flower to the sun, to keep those eyes on him. Is he floating? Maybe. And if Keith stops looking at him, he might float right off into space. It’s nearly unbearable. He takes another gulp, to give himself something to do. 

“You really like that stuff, huh?” Keith says.

Opportunity appears. “You wanna try some?” 

Keith shrugs, reaching a hand for the cup. Lance is quick to pour it all down the sink on his left.

“Wha—”

“I _said,_ ” He draws his arms around Keith’s shoulders, gaze unwavering, because for once, he’s not afraid to push, “do you want to try some?”

If this had all been in his head, and for a soul-clenching second it seems like that’s the case, he’ll burst into something wild and embarrassed. But then — they’re kissing. Sheer relief. Their lips meet, once, twice, five times, stars bouncing off each other, until they mellow together. It’s wet. In the best possible way. Keith’s tongue moves in lazy strokes, again and again as if he’s really savoring the bright fruitiness. There’s the burn of something savory, the spice of Keith’s drink. He chases after it, because he can, because how, how, has he gotten here? Jesus, even his very blood is _vibrating_. 

He can’t help the consuming grin, and the infection of it spreads to Keith. Their kiss-smile falls apart, so Keith pecks kisses against his nose. His cheeks, his jaws, his pulse. Lance smooths his hands down the firm rises of Keith's arms, his back. And what is this, if not pieces of the future, of a dream? Turned to reality by alchemy, or gravity, or their drinks or just the two of them. They press into each other’s spaces, his thumb brushing the mountain peak of Keith’s scar.

“Tastes sweet. Like berries,” Keith mumbles into his throat.

“Huh?” The words reach him too slowly.

“The fishbowl,” Keith grins up at him. “Tastes pretty good to me.” 

Happy embarrassment flares at hearing his own tactic. “Alrighty,” He drags Keith’s stupid face back up. “That’s enough talking.”

Some of the rules get broken. Again. And again. And once more in the shower, when Lance is initially insistent on really cleaning up, because _adults take skincare seriously, Keith_. But then Lance’s thighs get wrapped around Keith’s waist, they become one shape under the warm water and his concern washes down the drain. 

Here’s another piece of the future: In the morning, he’ll wake to the fan of Keith’s eyelashes and count every single one, to the zebra stripes of sunlight on their skin. In the morning, they’ll do it all again. Then drag each other to the kitchen for pancakes and coffee and it’ll probably make them both late. Keith will insist on driving him. Lance will insist it’s fine. They’ll squabble, or at least pretend to, before a deep kiss makes Lance surrender, and they'll drive off into something better than any hushed daydream. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just putting this out there: I will always support BLM, and will remain critical of the police. But i’m glad that there’s this fictional space where the police can still be a fun trope to play around with, and I hope that this space can be relief for you too <3, <3 
> 
> Thanks to everyone in the comments, they gave me such a boost while writing this chapter. As always, please leave a comment if you'd like, i appreciate every single one!  
> tumblr: not-selfconfrontation  
> twitter: _not_self (best place to see chapter sneak peaks!)
> 
> thank you for reading, see you at the next chapter ❤️❤️


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS THE LAST CHAPTER! I'll be updating with a short epilogue in a few days!! Thank you guys so much for sticking through this with me <3

The night before Keith is meant to go back, Lance insists on movie and wine night. 

“I can’t let you leave without seeing this cultural  _ masterpiece _ , you rock dweller.” 

Imagine his mystification when Keith had stared at him, blank-eyed, with the admittance that he’d never seen  _ Hearts in Tandem,  _ a high school romcom from the 70s. And, if there just so happens to be cozying up and hands dancing around in the dark, well, it can’t be helped. Movie and wine night demands it.

The wine Hunk recommended has a poodle dancing on its hind legs on its label so he knows it’s fancy. And when two glasses of the stuff leaves them splayed over the bed, hiccuping in laughter, he knows it’s fantastic.

The remains of the pillow wall lay around their feet. By the end of Act 2, Keith is blinking himself awake, Lance thumping a hand against his chest.

“Oh, wait,” he cackles, as the movie reaches its climax. “I can recite this shit by heart.” The jock, now reformed from his bullying ways, has found his heroine, begging on his knees in the rain for her.

“I can’t find any other way to live, Beatrice,” Lance recites along with the actor. Keith chuckles along, charmed by his dramatic fainting position, a hand set wearily against his forehead. The happy sound is enough to make Lance turn to it, a light in the dark. He grabs Keith’s hand as if pleading. 

“If there is an end or a beginning to either of us, I don’t want to know it.” 

“I can’t decide if this is charming or mortifying,” Keith groans, his toothy grin giving him away.

“How dare you.” Lance smushes a kiss to his chin. “It’s definitely charming.”

Keith agrees with him, not with words, but with the way he pulls Lance up into his arms and prevents him from using his mouth for any more recitation. Which is  _ just fine by Lance _ . He doesn’t remember much of the speech anyways, save for the last line. It comes to him as a loose wine-soaked thought, long after the credits have rolled and Keith seems to be sweetly dozing. 

“Where else, Beatrice, where else would I be with you? What will happen to me without you,” he mutters. Safe words floating in the air with no receiver. Keith shifts behind him, probably shuffling in his sleep. Everything feels like he’s skipped forward 40 years, to when his life will be figured out, the happiness of having nothing to worry about. Warm, his heart heavy with love, Lance drifts off and joins Keith in sleep. 

If Lance had turned, he might have seen that Keith was barely on the edge of waking, but could hear Lance well enough. Might have seen the sad flicker in Keith’s eyes, at words that worry deeper into his mind than he’d admit.

  
  


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“Hey. Dude. Sir.” This is what croaks out of Lance’s mouth when faced with Fire Lieutenant Takashi Shirogane. Who Keith insists can just be referred to as Shiro (“Don’t let his head get any bigger!” he groaned.)

Lieutenant Takas — _ Shiro _ , is standing nearly shoulder to shoulder with his doorway, smiling. “How’s it going? Lance, right? Allura has told me great things.”

He makes a mental note to bake Allura a cake, stepping aside for Shiro to enter.

“Wow, is that  _ my _ brother!” Shiro gasps, when Keith comes out, bags in hand. 

“Please don’t.”

“Just gotta make sure! All that smoke must have clouded my memories.”

“ _ Ooo _ kay,” Keith groans, as Shiro bear-hugs him. Keith is a grumpy little plushie in his arms. Lance has to hide his laugh at the image it makes. 

At the curb, Shiro walks to the driver’s side of his truck, while Keith dumps his things in the bed. His motorcycle waits just next to it. Then, he swivels to Lance, and it feels like something tearing, like an old sweater that had just stitched back together. At least, that’s how Keith looks at him.

“You’re not gonna go on a crazy spree after this, right?” He means it as a joke. Lance lays a hand across his scar, and revels in the weight of Keith turning into it. Out here in the early morning, the world feels like it can pause. Work is not waiting for him, nor grad school, nor his life. If he begs and prays to the universe, it can all wait a little longer. 

Keith’s smile is small and steady. “I’ll make sure to let you know if I do.” But the grin doesn’t reach his eyes. Doesn’t curl his scar in the way that Lance hadn’t realized he’d come to expect in just a few short weeks.

They kiss, gentle but warming him from the inside out, and then Keith mounts his motorcycle. Both vehicles roll away, blipping into the distance. And the sun keeps rising.

  
  


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A few weeks later, Hunk calls Lance, who’s walking down the street, approaching Keith’s place, and eventually asks, “So you guys aren’t dating?”

“It’s...” Lance goes, winding his hand around in the air, as if an answer will appear in his palm by magic. Eventually he decides on, “Post-label?”

“More like postposted.”

“More like we just aren’t doing that!”

“That?”

“That whole label thing!” Lance groans. Words like boyfriend or partner seemed to be getting dusted away whenever he saw Keith, swept in the much greater concern of which cheek he should kiss first, what date he wanted to go on next. There would be time for that stuff later.

He creaks his way up the apartment building staircase, guiding his way to the unit Keith told him. 

He hangs up with Hunk and prepares to knock, but the door swings open, his knuckles just narrowly missing Shiro’s face. 

“Oh, hey Lance.” Shiro is dazzling in red, firefighter uniform draped over him. Lance is sure that he’s missing a red cape, with some superhero tighty whities just to make sure. “Keith is in the kitchen.”

“Off to dash someone away from a fire?” Shiro lets him in, but lingers in the doorway. The peppery scent of home cooking sticks to the walls, circulates through his grumbling stomach.

“You know it.” Shiro adjusts the straps of his uniform, almost heads out the door with a smile and a wave, but then stops. He turns halfway to Lance and says, “Thanks for coming over. It’s nice having you around.” Shiro’s eyes catch on something behind him. Lance turns to see a family portrait hanging on the wall, a lovably grumpy toddler clinging to the legs of a teenager, their parents right behind them. A puppy is frozen in playful barking at their feet.

Shiro heads off, leaving Lance to wander into the kitchen. Keith mans the stove, a steaming pan of something delicious in front of him and a bottle of oil in his hand, blissfully unaware of what’s behind him.

“How much am I supposed to drizzle again?” he mutters.

Lance hums, laying a hand gently on Keith’s shoulder. “I think that’s enough,” he says.

“I don’t know.” Keith stares into the hypnosis of sizzling meat and tomato, off in another world. “I think Lance usually puts more.” 

“Keith.”

“I’m just saying  — oh! Hey!” Lance laughs, while Keith graces him with a kiss. He finishes up the dish, an amazing duplication of his mother’s ropa vieja, as if she had whispered her recipe into his ear. They take their plates up to the building rooftop, Keith jamming his shoulder through the roof door and into the dazzling pink sunset.

“Rooftops and sunsets.” Lance muses, settling cross-legged on the granite floor, or rather the ceiling. “A recurring theme.”

“Maybe for the last time.” Keith joins him on the ground, knees bumping together. “One of these days we’re gonna get caught.” 

“Look at you, Mr. Responsible Civilian.”

“Ha,” Keith pushes some beef around his plate, sad little mountains of meat that leak oil. “Sure”

Lance shuffles a little closer, that old concern getting its familiar grip on his heart. “How’s it been, being back with your bro? Things seem pretty chill.”  _ You haven’t been back to the station  _ is what he doesn’t say, but Keith hears it anyways.

“Yeah. I mean sometimes, I just,” Keith sets his plate aside. “Feel weird being in this town. I keep running into shit that just...feels like trying to put an old scab back on my skin.” 

“Then let’s get out.”

The idea takes form before he knows what he’s saying, already sure of it. “I know the tour isn’t ‘til next Monday. Let’s leave in a couple days, on Friday. Make a whole weekend out of it?” 

“Yeah? Wanna whisk me away?” Lance cackles as Keith grabs his legs and pulls him halfway into his lap, their bodies fitting into each other.

“Oh you know it. We’ve already got all the roadtrip stuff. We can get a hotel in Altea! Warm bubbly bathtubs, overpriced minibar snacks, all the works, gorgeous.”

“Alright,” He delights in the grin claiming Keith’s face, small but there. “I’ll meet you at the station Friday night.” Their lips meet, as if sealing a promise. One kiss becomes two, six, unending, their food growing cold in the rooftop winds.

  
  


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Lance is practically skipping down the steps of the library on Friday night, his backpack on his shoulders. The sweet woman at the counter assured him they’d gotten back all their missing inventory, but still didn’t know who it was. Honestly, that’s the best Lance could hope for, for now.

The sky was a starry indigo, stunning, but he imagines the view will be even better as he stays at Keith’s place tonight. And tomorrow, the sky would be a glowing cerulean, all the way down the road.

He stops to pull out his water bottle, rummaging through all the nightly things he’d packed, when he hears a  _ clink-clink _ . Those dumb purple handcuffs, trapped at the bottom since that day at the market. It yanks a laugh out of him somewhere deep. Sunshine, the neon leaves, the stupid things they bought and said. And now, the station, a couple blocks away, where Keith is waiting for him.

It’s enough to keep him grinning all the way there. In the distance, the blare of sirens, droning on towards the station. But he can’t find it in himself to worry. His mind is set on tomorrow, bouncing on a hotel bed, strolling with Keith around the brick-stone path of a school that might be his future. 

When he makes it to the station 20 minutes later, he finds Allura already out front, her hair in wisps, her mouth thickened into a frown. He can pinpoint the moment his gut spoils like a curd, the second that she sets her eyes on him.

“Oh, hello Lance.”

“Hey,” he tries for a little smile.

Her eyebrows furrow. “Are you...headed home?”

“Not yet. I’m just waiting for...” when Allura’s face drops, his heart drops with it, splashing into a rancid mess. “For Keith.”

“Lance.” He watches, rather than feels, her hand lay gently on his arms. “He’s already inside. In the holding cells.”

  
  


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Lance is not going to explode. Each thudding stomp he takes down into the basement feels like jostling a bomb inside his chest, _ sure,  _ but he has it  _ absolutely  _ under control.

The cells. He hasn’t been done here in weeks. He hasn’t needed to. The popcorn texture of the concrete floors, the metal infrastructure that looks so cold it feels like the air is ringing. 

When he gets to Keith in Cell 17, leaning up against the cell bars like it’s the beginning of the summer, like that’s just where he’s supposed to be, he just  —

“You know they might have to keep you here all week for this, right?!” Lance explodes. He’s not entirely sure if that’s true, or why Keith is in here. Too frazzed to really review the preliminary reports but he wants to see concern in Keith’s face, instead of the resignation that’s furrowed on his eyebrows. To make this situation into something truly devastating and serious, something so world-ending that it justifies Keith’s return to these goddamn holding cells. 

It sucks, and it’s futile, but he wants to know that Keith is freaking out as much as he is. Why Keith  _ isn’t _ freaking out as much as he is. 

And so on he goes,  “Please just tell me what’s going on.”

And so on Keith stays silent. He looks at Lance like he already knows what’s happened, what is happening, what will happen. Just waiting for Lance to catch up. 

“Dude,” he tries again. 

“You should go up to Altea without me, Lance.” 

“Without — ” 

“I’m sorry. It just doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere.” As if Lance doesn’t know that! Keith pushes off the wall and makes to head to the back of the cell.

“Y’know what? You’re right!” He rips off his backpack, hand grasping around those stupid purple handcuffs.

_ Clink. Clink _

“You absolutely are not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.” 

There they stand, Lance on one side, stuffing the key in his pocket, Keith on the other, their hands hanging loosely in the air, supported by itchy purple fuzz. 

“Lance,” Keith says. “I’m already inside the  — ”

“It’s metaphorical, dude.” 

“Metaphors aren’t usually so physical — ”

“Keith!” Lance groans, dropping down onto the floor, forcing Keith down with him. 

When minutes go by with nothing, some little kernel of desperation, or hope, whatever vulnerable thing that had slid down his throat and taken hold of his heart that night he asked Keith to stay with him the second time, it pushes him to whisper, “You know what Rule 3 is?” 

Keith shifts against the bars, his finger creeping closer to his.

“It’s trust.”

“Lance.” His voice cracks just a bit.

“You’re holding onto, like, 200% of my heart right now.” He tries not to gag on the embarrassing heat of that confession. “And you’re the only person I want to have that. Because I fucking trust you!” A pause. “Because I couldn’t have gotten this far without you.”

“So I’ll wait here all night with you, if you want. Just...please, trust me with what happened.”

The weeks flash by him like solar flares; the market, nights on the couch, the distance between them on the bed that felt too small, and then too large.

“What happened is that, as a kid, I never really thought I’d leave this town. And then we were orphans. Just a few years ago.” Keith’s voice feels like the only sound on earth. “And then we left. And we never stopped moving. I just couldn’t stop moving. When Shiro fucking dragged me back here, everything just changed.” 

It all starts pouring out of him, a waterfall of something sharp and terrible that makes Lance squeeze his hand, Keith squeezing back as he goes, “I walk past the park and they’re both  _ there _ , and I end hopping the fence fucking chasing them. That grocery store, the market, the library, everywhere. I know it’s not an excuse, but it feels like I’m dead too. Watching everyone move on, the world moving on without them — _ Fuck _ .”

Keith’s skin is vibrating, his voice cracking even harder, and Lance is there in an instant, folding both their hands together into a knitwork of warmth, until Keith becomes steadier, his pulse less hummingbird-frantic. His voice is stone. “That new pet rescue, Zarkon’s. That’s where my parent’s house used to be, before they tore it down. The first time I went, I don’t know, I just wanted to see what was left. I hopped the fence and there’s just this one dog limping around the backyard,  _ my _ backyard, like someone forgot him there.” He swipes a hand through the fluff of his mullet. “I took him home. But my landlord didn’t really agree. They took the dog back and banned me from the rescue.” 

The bomb of anger in Lance’s heart has long gone off, leaving fissures of sorrow, of frustration, getting wider with Keith’s every word.

“Tonight I tried to go back, just to see him and — ” Keith shrugs, a measly hiccup of his shoulders. “Now I’m here.”

_ Clink. Clink _ .

“No, you’re not.” 

Lance is on his feet in an instant, the fuzzy handcuffs falling to the floor. He swipes his work ID through the card reader next to the jail bars, and then Keith is free, standing in the doorway.

“What are you doing?” He looks at Lance like he’s a snowflake in the desert, something never seen before, that would never happen again. 

“Rule 3, right? Trust?” Lance tugs him gently through the doorway, their foreheads just barely touching. “So trust me when I say that tonight, you’re getting a dog.”

  
  
  


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“I can help you — ”

“I got it,” Lance hisses, still struggling halfway up the fence as Keith watches from the other side. He had just launched himself over, with his annoying ninja-soldier reflexes. 

“Here let me — ”

In a burst of energy, Lance yanks himself up to the top and, just as suddenly, tilts over onto the other side. He has a moment to realize that he is not a cat, so he probably won’t land on his feet, before suddenly the world stops moving. And there’s Keith. 

He can’t say he’s entirely mad about the prospect of being caught in Keith’s arms. Not with the view; Keith backlit by the golden street lights, midnight winds blowing his hair around him like a wispy halo. 

“You sure you wanna do this?” Keith asks

“Yup!” Lance says, flailing himself out of Keith’s hold, a little too loud. “Yes, yes, let’s go find this dog!”

“Shhh.”

“Right,” he whispers. “Let’s go find this dog. Quietly.”

But the yard is empty, as they scan the area, shifting through the low yellow grass. Everything here is pretty dead. Nothing but worn chains and wooden stakes, a foreboding sign on conditions. He’s pretty sure tethering like this isn’t legal for rescue and adoption places. Lance had his suspicions about this place to begin with. The Zarkon Inc. buildings were popping up all over town like a bunch of capitalist groundhogs. The ownership was delegated across so many different middle managers, shell companies, and liaisons, even Allura was having a hard time pinning them down.

Keith’s fingers suddenly stitch together with his, tugging him back. 

“Be careful.” Keith’s gaze is pointed downwards, to the upturded stake that Lance would have impaled his foot on.

“Look at you James Bond,” he whispers, pecking a kiss to his scar, enjoying the crease of Keith’s smile against his. Lance is suspicious, truly, about this place. But he’s got other, much more handsome reasons to be here too. 

They creep along the concrete walls, until they get to a cellar door, chain lock broken open and left aside. 

“This is, uh, as far as I got.” 

“Okay. We get in. Get upstairs. We find that cute little dog. We take pictures of all the fucked up conditions that I’m, like, one-thousand-percent positive are illegal. We get out.” Lance claps his hands in finality, his pulse pumping faintly through his skin. Keith holds the cellar door open for him, and down they descend. 

It’s still. Too still for a place that’s supposed to be housing dozens of animals. None of the distant barking and meowing from the upstairs storefront he expected. But then he flicks on his flashlight, at the same time Keith accidentally steps on something long and fuzzy.

“ _ Shit. _ ” 

Cages. Crammed along the walls. Wailing of every kind shocks the air, squeezes out everything else. All the animals had been silent, afraid, until the light burst upon them. Keith, like a needle in a haystack, is trying to soothe the one poor pup whose tail he stepped on. As it turns out, they know each other.

“Hey buddy, I’m sorry. I came back for you,” Keith coos. Lance takes a mental screenshot of that adorable image for a later time, when his brain isn’t being squeezed out by every animal sound possible. He sees birds hopping on one leg, he sees rabbits squeezed into cages with cats and dogs. Splotchy fur, lazy eyes, the revolting smell of wet fur and droppings and, as he approaches the farthest end of the cellar, to the door with the metal barricade across it, he also hears  — roaring? 

He hefts the barricade up, letting it clank to the floor, and behind it is...

“Keith!”

“Yeah?”

“Get over here!” 

“Over where?”

“Just —  here! At the end!”

Keith finally appears, where Lance has been frozen in prey-like shock, his hindbrain taking over his muscles in evolutionary defense. He feels Keith seize up besides him.

The lions could be considered majestic, in another light. The three of them are up against a large metal cage, enormous maws snapping at the bars. On an episode of Animal Planet, they’d be stretching across the grasslands, grooming their cubs. In this dark, shady cellar room, they bare their teeth at the first moving thing they see  — Lance and Keith.

“I’m...calling Allura,” Lance whispers.

“What?” Keith says, “You don’t wanna try chasing them down the street first?”

  
  


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“An illegal pet trade!” an officer exclaims, several hours later, before the crack of the dawn. “Who woulda thunk it?”

The front lawn is peppered with police, the street flooded with red-blue flashing. Allura flits back and forth between the animal control guys taking the domestic animals, the wildlife specialists and vets taking care of the lions, now tranquilized and on their way to sanctuary. Officers had been sent out to track down Zarkon and the other managers who, conveniently, were not in town.

“You’ve got this one here to thank, by the way.” Lance loops an arm around Keith’s shoulders, who just grumbles in his modesty. 

“Well. Officially, you did try to rob them.” Coran says, just behind them. Allura is with him, apparently taking a moment to address them all.

“It was a  _ liberation. _ ” 

“ _ Officially _ , you’re likely in violation of about 15 local ordinances just by being here, and  _ not _ in the holding cells.” Allura raises an eyebrow at Keith, who suddenly finds the ground very interesting. 

“Officially,” She continues, a soft curve to her lips, “I will have to take note of the circumstances of your latest incident, given the larger criminal element involved and I will allow,  _ for the last time _ , that charges be dropped instead of prosecution.”

“Thank — ”

“ _ Unofficially, _ ” She insists, “I will see you at the station next Wednesday, to begin your three weeks of volunteer service.”

“That's — ” Lance starts to complain.

“ — totally fair. And super generous.” Keith finishes, elbowing him in the side. 

By the time dawn rises, Keith and Lance are sitting on the curb, their knees balanced against each other like a house of cards. Watching dawn light take over the world.

“So,” Lance says. “I’m thinking: a major nap, food, another nap and then...road trip?”

Keith looks at him, grins like Lance has just offered him the sun.

“If, y’know,” Lance coughs. “If you’re still up for — whoa”

Keith yanks him into his side, firm, pressing his lips to Lance’s cheek.

“I don’t know where else I’d be without you,” a prayer whispered into Lance’s skin. 

He doesn’t know who starts the kiss but he knows how it feels; something blooming, lovely as a corsage. Like it is the first and last time he will ever touch another human being. Ardently. The light around them becomes blinding, something so natural and sweet he can’t understand how it could ever be gray, how it could ever be dull like it was just weeks ago.

Eventually they separate, Keith leaving three sweet pecks on his lips before standing up.

“You ready to go?” Keith says, smile broad, eyes warm, a painting made flesh.

“Yeah. I’m ready.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't thank everyone enough, everyone who commented, left a kudos, or even read one sentence. Thank you again! Again, I'll be posting a short epilogue in a few days to wrap things up, and I've got a new fic and couple more oneshots planned for the future. ❤️❤️❤️


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the epilogue! It's pretty short, I just wanted a few last scenes with this fic. Thanks for sticking around y'all <3

When they finally leave the scene and get back to Keith’s apartment, the world has already bustled into action. The two of them slump into bed, slotted into each other like parentheses, and pass out. But Lance has always managed to run on little sleep and he has a surprise to prepare. He wakes up hours later, in the afternoon, and lets Keith sleep in. Rummages up all the luggage they’d already packed, the bags of twisty Cheetos, a cooler full of sodas that are sure to dissolve through their stomach, his favorite pair of heart-shaped sunglasses. A copy of the letter of recommendation Allura had handed him after the stakeout. All packed into the bed of Shiro’s truck.

By the time he swings by the vet’s office and gets back, his surprise for Keith wiggling and waggling his tail in the backseat, Keith has woken up, groggily standing outside with his backpack.

“Rise and shine, gorgeous!” Lance shouts, _honk-honk-honking_ until Keith is running over to the driver’s side to stop him, laughing.

“It’s like 3PM.”

“Yup!” Lance slaps the steering wheel. “And we got a lot of driving to do if we’re gonna get to Altea by tomorrow, so get that cute butt in here.”

As Keith climbs in, Lance goes, “I guess you could say I’m really _hounding_ to get a move on.”

“Okay, okay,” Keith chuckles, unknowingly raising Lance’s blood pressure as he doesn’t look in the backseat. The backseat where the dog has decided to become quiet. 

Alright then.

“I guess we’ve had a bit of a _ruff_ start, huh?” 

“I can go look inside for some coffee real quick, if you need it,” Keith offers, already half-way out the door, annoyingly adorable. It pushes his blood pressure straight through the roof.

“Okay, how about you look in the backseat, Mr. Considerate.” 

As soon as the dog sees Keith’s face, he starts jumping up and down, shoving through to the front so he can squirm in Keith’s lap.

“ _Holy —_ hey buddy! Hey,” Keith coos, the dog nuzzling into his shoulders, paws dancing over Keith’s thighs. “I didn’t think I’d get to see you so soon.”

“Yeah, well,” Lance signs, more thoroughly in love than he thought possible. “A certain Darryl may or may not have found a certain new job at the vet’s office as a receptionist and may or may not have been able to fast track my application to adopt a certain rescued puppy.”

Keith just stares at him, eyes sparkling. As if Keith is a floating astronaut, staring into the beginning of the universe. Into something devastating. It certainly feels devastating, laying delightful waste to Lance’s heart.

Finally, Keith goes, “I guess I’ll have to thank a certain boyfriend of mine.” 

“Yeah,” Lance whispers, “I guess you wi— _mmph_.” 

They stay there like that, kissing over the armrest, Keith’s hand knitted in his hair, until the dog barks at them several minutes later. Even canines have a better responsibility than them.

“What are you gonna name him anyways?” Lance says, the truck purring as he turns the ignition.

“He hasn’t told me yet.”

“What?”

“I figure, y’know, when he’s ready to be named, it’ll just sort of appear to me.”

“Keith.”

“ _What?_ ”

  
  


❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

  
  
  


As they pull along the freeway, the horizon dissolves past the suburban houses, popped up like weeds, past the small skyline of Balmera Heights, and finally, the flat line of rural land.

The road has become slightly gravelled, a smooth stream of crunching that passes through the open truck windows. There’s the sheer virginity of the sky, so terrifyingly blank that it reminds Lance of how small the barrier between Earth and the rest of the space is. Every so often they pass some buildings; a stray home, a hardware store, an auto shop. The creaky cries of a predator bird, which prompts Kosmo to bark in response. Lance has yet to inform Keith of this secret new name for Kosmo. Clean air. Faint drones of soft rock from the radio.

What can he call this? He doesn’t dare to call it perfect, lest the universe hears it as a taunt and rises to the challenge. But still, there's a clean warmth, radiating like a bonfire through cold autumn air, enough to tame his nerves of the visit. It’s—

The sudden hiss of a flat tire, and the uneven slump of the truck.

10 minutes later, they’re both staring into the bed of Shiro’s trunk. Underneath their luggage, underneath a flat hidden compartment, where the manufacturer’s manual has told them should be a spare tire. The universe did, in fact, hear him, and has decided to leave the compartment empty. 

“Maybe we can pump it back up?” Lance mutters.

“How would we patch up the hole?”

“Duct tape.”

“Do you have any?”

The glove compartment informs that, no, they do not.

“The nearest tow truck company is like two hours from here,” Lance mutters, scrolling through his phone.

“No tow truck.” He looks up to see Keith shouldering his backpack, storing a few water bottles.

“What? You gonna go hunt and gather some tires?”

“We drove past an auto shop like 15 minutes ago. I’ll grab a tire, be back in like 40 minutes?”

“ _We’ll_ be back,” Lance corrects, snagging one of the water bottles from his backpack.

“Lance. One of us has to watch the truck. And the dog.”

“So we stuff all the luggage in the backseat and take him with us. You think you’re just gonna hike in the middle of nowhere alone?” Lance smiles, a toothy grin that pulls a matching one out of Keith, who acquiesces easily. And so they walk, Kosmo trotting along in front of them. Warm air claiming their exposed skin. Eventually the auto shop appears in the distance, as they approach it from the back. It’s shielded by a fence extending all the way across a field of dry grass, wisping around their ankles.

Lost in the hypnosis of walking, having forgotten their exact purpose, Lance doesn’t question it when Keith leads them across the field up to the fence, instead of finding a way around. Only when Keith starts lifting Kosmo up into his arms and over the fence, which is only about 7 feet high, does his brain glitch back into manual mode.

“It’s an emergency!” Keith cuts him off, preempting Lance’s complaint. He laughs as Kosmo prances around on the other side.

“We can just go around! We don’t need to...” His words drone off, firm hands pulling him from the waist towards the fence. Lance doesn’t know how he forgot, how he underestimated Keith’s ability to get him one good look, one flash of dark eyes swimming in mirth, that catch the last bits of evening light.

And so the two of them land on the other side with a great thump, chasing after Kosmo towards the auto-shop. By the time they get back to the fence, a new tire in their possession, giggling as they throw it over, the sun has gone down. Although it isn’t raining, the air has that clean scent of wet, shifted earth. It all takes him back to that first night, when his mind said no and his heart said yes. He is brought back and taken forward. Life in repetition.

  
  


❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

  
  
  


“I hope you’ve all enjoyed this little slice of campus life today!” The tour guide, peppy in every sense of the word, down to the gravity-defying bounce of her hair, leaves them all to absorb the campus by themselves. Today concludes the general portion of his tour. Tomorrow, he would be led through the social work and diplomacy section of the university, recommended to him by Allura.

Keith and Lance make their own way easily enough, past the ivy covered brick of campus dorm buildings, through the students throwing frisbees back and forth across the grassy lawn. Pausing by the library, munching through the meager bags of pretzels that the vending machine would give them. Through the campus garden of carrots, the small sprouts that will soon become pumpkins. Through tricking water of fountains and the glare of sunlight off glossy textbooks.

Through and through and through.

Through the cage he built for himself, through the wall of what he believes he can and cannot do.

And with him, holding his hand like it is the last thing he’ll ever do, is Keith. Keith, who listens to him as Lance excitedly points out the historic buildings and the beautiful cobblestone. Who lets Lance shower first when they return to the hotel. Who, when Lance exits the hotel bathroom, presents him with the pillow wall he has built on the king-sized bed while Lance had been taking said shower. Who laughs when Lance wallops him in the face with one of those pillows.

Keith, who whispers to him in the night, like he’s got one last secret to tell: “I love you.”

And when Lance whispers it back, in the last vestiges of sleep, he thinks of that dumb magazine quiz, asking him what he was looking for.

This.

Just this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come follow me on tumblr @not-selfconfrontation and twitter @not_self_  
> I love hearing from people!  
> Thanks again for actually making it to the end of this mess lmao

**Author's Note:**

> if you enjoyed this story, stick around! I've got a rival spies AU coming up soon ❤️❤️
> 
> [TWITTER](https://twitter.com/notself_)   
>  [TUMBLR](https://not-selfconfrontation.tumblr.com/)


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